


Flux & Solder

by angharabbit



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canada AU, Domestic Reylo, F/M, Modern AU, NSFW, a steamy cup of tea, additional tags inside, excessive amounts of time where characters are reading, make sure it’s your cup of tea - read tags, story equivalent of a quiet cup of tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-01-27 18:50:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 23,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21396973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angharabbit/pseuds/angharabbit
Summary: Rey’s established a quiet life in the suburbs. Working in her stained glass workshop and reading on the front porch may not be enough though, after a new neighbour makes her question her accepted loneliness.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 176
Kudos: 746





	1. September

**Author's Note:**

> Additional tags:  
\- brief mentions of off-page police violence and misconduct  
\- brief mention of witnessing an off-page violent sexual assault that causes PTSD in a major character  
\- brief mentions of substance addictions  
\- brief scenes of on and off page violence  
\- very brief conversation about the possibility of pregnancy in future
> 
> None of the above tags are major elements in the story, but provide background information for a character
> 
> For Amy ❤️

September

The sold sign had been down about a week when a yellow cab pulled up to the house next door.

Rey’s elderly neighbour, a dear old gent always ready with a war story and a cold beer, had slipped the mortal coil sometime in July. His family had put the house up ‘as is’ in August, and it had lingered on the market a whole three days before an offer had been accepted.

Here’s hoping her new neighbour was quiet. Tidy. Incurious. 

With a lifetime of turmoil behind her, Rey wasn’t prepared to give up the quiet, if sometimes lonely, low drama world she’d become accustomed to.

The course of her August-long anxiety-train was derailed by the man exiting the taxi on the first of September. He didn’t need a house, he was a house. Picking up two large beat up suitcases from the trunk, a box with a leafy green plant sticking out, and a backpack, he turned to face his new home.

A closed expression was on his handsome face, emotion inscrutable under a tangle of shoulder-length black hair. He brought his worldly possessions in one trip to the covered front porch, twin to Rey’s post-war vinyl shoebox, and disappeared inside. 

For a moment, sitting in the shadows of her own front porch on the hot but cloudy day, picking at the peeling forest green paint on the rail, she considered a welcoming gift. Her sweaty hair stuffed into however many elastics it took to contain it today, her long old woman shorts with the big pockets, and her worn Cows Dairy novelty tee from Goodwill were probably not first meeting attire. She thought about what she had to offer. 

Perhaps the attractive man could use a nearly-complete yellow box of discount cookies. 

Perhaps not. Rey had retired any thoughts of romance around the same time she’d abandoned hope about her parents returning, she reminded herself, stuffing the thought back into its mental box.

It wasn’t a life of plenty, but it was a life of enough, and that was more than she’d hoped to find.

Going back to her leather work gloves and sandpaper, she smoothed away the sharp edges of a hundred round glass holly berries. Each red dime-sized dot was such simple work she could let her mind wander.

Rey was deep in speculation about her new neighbour when he cleared his throat, unnoticed at the bottom of the porch steps. He eyed her cautiously, keeping a good distance between them.

“Pardon me, ma’am,” he said in a polite, military-crisp tone. “Sorry to bother you. Could I trouble you for directions to the nearest grocery store and library?”

“They’re separate,” she answered without thinking. The gentleman’s blank face didn’t change, but the breeze took a few tendrils of his hair for a wander. It was mesmerizing. “I mean yeah no, for sure, I can certainly. Grocery store is that way and then right,” she pointed, “library is that way, take a right, then follow the curve around the cemetery until you see it,” she finished, pointing in the other direction. He nodded, thanked her, and took the route to the library.

“Books over food, eh,” she mused to herself, picking up another glass berry. She glanced over to the new neighbour’s house, realizing too late she hadn’t done introductions. An ancient lawn chair had been put out next door. There’d be other opportunities.

XXX

They didn’t speak again for nearly two weeks. On nice days Rey did her glasswork on the breezy cool porch instead of her little workshop in the old shed, and from dawn until dusk he was there next door, book in hand. Like her, he seemed to find any amount of time inside intolerable.

When she cared to keep track from her spot on her porch swing, she could see him burn through three or four paperbacks in a single day. Sometimes he finished them under the yellowed porch light, his black hair falling back to reveal his ears as he tried to catch the light, and was back at the crack of dawn with the same coffee mug as always curling steam. A few times she recognized cover art as books she’d seen or read, but he didn’t seem to have a particular pattern or taste. 

His meals were fast to prepare, and usually eaten outside once ready. Rey saw a ritualistic amount of cereal boxes, milk bags, soup cans, peanut butter jars, and jam jars in his recycling bin to get an idea why. He rarely left, though, and from her vantage point working from home, never appeared to do any money-earning task either. Clothing was a uniform of dark jeans, plain black tshirts, and plaid button downs of various weights she thought might have been left behind by old Mr Rook’s family.

Her curiosity aside, he was an ideal neighbour. Silent, attentive to his lawn without being obsessed with his lawn, and everything she’d wanted. She couldn’t fault him for being unfriendly when she’d made no effort to go speak to him either. As far as she knew, he hadn’t spoken to anyone on their street. 

The quiet company had become familiar, and Rey wondered if he’d still be out there with her when winter moved in.

It was mid-September when a ghost-marked black police pickup pulled up in front of her house. Rey plucked her headphones out, and paused her audiobook. She’d been living in the suburbs now long enough to realize most of the people here only locked their doors at night, if they remembered, and cops were rare.

A tall, severe-looking red-haired man emerged from the driver’s side. He wore a black uniform, the yellow stripe of the RCMP down his leg. Surveying the house distastefully, he ignored Rey and examined the number on her honeysuckle-wrapped porch post. Finding it lacking, he turned to the new neighbour’s

“Over here, you prick,” came a deep, even voice from the porch next door. Rey’s eyes flicked over, surprised once again at the sound of him speaking.

The man next door had stood up, his book left on the chair behind him. His bearing had changed. She wouldn’t have expected to see this man sprawled in a lawn chair, feet crossed on the rail at the end of long denimed legs. Even in a soft flannel he seemed to have transformed into a rigid soldier.

“You will show respect to your commanding officer, Solo,” the red-haired man hissed, storming up the patio stone walk with no care for the border flowers.

“I’m retired,” the neighbour retorted, simmering anger in his voice. Rey thought he caught her staring. “Let’s do this inside,” he finished.

Trying to ignore the muffled shouting next door, the smash of glass, Rey got to business doodling out a transom design for a downtown restoration project. She was halfway through a tulip tree motif when the visitor stormed out of her neighbour’s house, and spotted her. He walked across her lawn, taking the steps in one angry bound. 

“Here,” he said, shoving a business card in her face. She blinked up at him, noticing the rapid swelling around his nose and left eye. He towered over her, fingers pale and shaking with rage. “If Ben Solo so much as looks like he’s up to something, if he breathes wrong, the tiniest problem, you will let me know.” 

It wasn’t a request, it was a command.

Once the cloud had receded, the man she now had a name for, Ben, walked to the curb with a small cardboard box taped up and broadly labelled “GLASS”. Rey could see it from her swing, tempting her. Recycling pick up was tomorrow morning. She could scoop it after Ben went in the for night, and put it with her salvaged glass collection. 

What would it be? Plate? Drinking glass? A whole window pane? She was familiar with what people broke when they were angry.

Ben returned to his porch. He hesitated a moment before opening up his novel.

“Sorry,” he said sharply, and then covered his face in the open book.

XXX

Rey remembered she’d been watching the late September storm from the comfort of a nest of blankets and a cup of tea on the swaying porch swing. A Bronte played via headphone in one ear, and thunder had rumbled in the other. 

She had felt the mist of the heavy rain, but had been mostly sheltered, as had been Ben, reading in a black military-salvage looking rain coat next door.

That didn’t explain how she’d ended up soaking wet, in the shadows of her living room, being carried in the arms of her excessively strong neighbour.

“Hey, wake up. Wake up, Miss,” he was repeating firmly. His black t-shirt stuck to him, his hair plastered to his cheeks and neck. He smelled like clean rain, with no raincoat between her and warm, wet skin.

“Ben?” she murmured, shivering as her head cleared. 

“I saw you asleep on your swing,” he said curtly, setting her down as soon as she was conscious. “The wind changed direction, you were getting wet. You wouldn’t wake up. Conditions are hazardous out there.”

As if to prove his point, her front window rattled with a fresh pounding of rain and hail, the swing shifting wildly without her weight.

“You were still out in this?”

Frowning, he considered his words.

“I came back out to make sure you’d gone in. You hadn’t.”

“Thank you,” she breathed, rubbing water and sleep out of her eyes. The dark living room, small and warm with the windows closed, felt full of them. Ben’s presence took up even more room than his body, surrounding her with a tingling intimacy.

“Are you alright? Do you need anything more tonight, ma’am?” he asked professionally, slicking his hair back out of his face with a broad hand. Rey’s mind ran through a dozen inappropriate responses before finding something acceptable.

“Not ma’am. Rey,” she said, sticking her hand out from her wet blanket burrito. He touched it lightly before they both pulled back.

“Rey,” he repeated. Her hand felt warm from the heat of him. “I’ll go, have a good night, ma’am,”

“Ben,” she said, trying the name out loud before she repeated it later in the shower.

He paused at the door.

“Thank you,” she said warmly, smiling.

Alarm flooding his expression, Ben nodded curtly and ventured into the storm.

When Rey saw him the next morning, bringing his lawn chair back out as well as his coffee, breakfast, and a book, she felt it was time to take it to introvert first base.

Feeling awkward and with pre-emptive regret, she raised a hand in greeting. He blinked a moment at her, and then waved back. The interaction done, he turned slightly away to read, and Rey went back to drying her swing with clean rags.

There, now they were acquaintances.

XXX

Their first few interactions leaned heavily in the Rey-losing-dignity direction. After needing rescue from her own porch, it had only taken a glance out at her backyard to remember she’d left laundry on the line yesterday before the rain had started.

Knowing she needed to be in her workshop all day to cut the next round of ornaments, Rey angrily collected her scattered and muddy formerly-clean garments into a plastic basket. Taking a last glance around, her mental inventory told her she was one item short.

“Damn it, where are they,” she said aloud, basket on her hip.

“Sorry, I think this might be yours.”

A horror-movie slow turn confirmed Rey’s suspicions. Bunched in Ben’s hedge were her brightly coloured underpants. Before she could get there in time, he’d plucked them out, the yew branches leaving a small tear near the seam as they dislodged.

“Ah darn,” he said quietly, “I tore it, I’m sorry.”

“Been awhile since anyone tore my underpants,” Rey laughed awkwardly, trying immediately to change the subject and making it worse, “because dating’s not really my thing anyway. But I like underpants. Perk of living alone, working at home, they count as legitimate bottoms, especially in my workshop, it gets hot out there in the summer, like a sweaty dungeon with all the equipment. Just me and the backyard squirrels out there. They’re friendly, but I don’t name all of them, just the funny orange ones like B…”

Rey trailed off at the slightly horrified expression on Ben’s face, her underpants now dangling off one of his fingers on full display. 

“...B8… Let me take those off your hands there, literally, and I’m going to go put these back in the washer.”

She backed away, waving goodbye to his silence. 

XXX

The second police car that pulled up to Ben’s house was the last week of September, just as the first trees began to raise their colour.

Rey was taking a break from a complicated repair job to a large church window currently taking up her largest work bench. Stretching cramping fingers around a hot mug of tea, watching the dry leaves swirl over and around her new porch pumpkins on the painted green steps, she was surprised to find the officer approaching her. 

“Afternoon, ma’am,” he said politely, shifting a large golden red potted mum to his hip. He wore red serge, cutting a handsome figure in the autumnesque light. “My name is Finn, I’m a friend of your neighbour’s.”

“Friend?” she questioned before she could help herself. Ben didn’t seem like the friend-having sort.

“Colleague may be more accurate,” he corrected, his eyes crinkling in amusement. “May I sit with you a moment, and ask you a few questions that you don’t have to answer?”

Rey shifted over on the swing, but he sat on the top step, out of view of the porch next door. She could hear the lawn mower going in Ben’s backyard. He’d been at it long enough that he’d be moving to the front soon.

“Have you had any trouble with, or concerns about, Ben next door?”

The tone of his question was sincere, kindly meant. Rey instinctively knew that what Finn would do with this information was night and day to what the angry officer whose card was at the back of her junk drawer would do with it.

“There’s been nothing. Ben keeps to himself. Helped me out once, otherwise we don’t really talk. I don’t know anything about him.”

Finn nodded, satisfied. He shifted to go, picking up the plant, but Rey stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry, wait. You’re the second police officer to check up on him with me. Should I be concerned about him living next door? Is he a threat in some way?”

“Not to you,” Finn said hastily before clarifying. He looked pensive, drumming his fingers on the wood beside him. “It’s not really a secret. It was in the news at the time, but Ben was retired out after a traumatic incident undercover, and I worry about him. That he doesn’t know how to live with what he saw.”

“What did he see?” Rey asked, frowning.

Finn looked up at her, deciding. He delivered the truth baldly.

“Several fellow officers participating in violent sexual assaults during a raid on a drug den. Ben was there by coincidence. I’ll spare you the details, but one of the victims died.”

“Oh god,” she gasped softly.

“Ben shot the officers, the perpetrators.”

“He- what?”

“He’d infiltrated the house looking for the supplier. When he realized what the officers were doing, he shot them,” Finn repeated, warming to Rey’s story-listening face. “They all survived and are in prison now. He’s a good shot, he didn’t kill them, but Ben was retired out on full pension after he was declared unfit for duty after that, followed by a stint at a-“

“Are you done?” asked an even voice from the grass. Rey had missed when the mower had stopped.

“Just chatting with your lovely neighbour, Solo,” Finn said unabashed. He handed Rey a business card, his eyes friendly. 

“If you have any worries,” he said, standing up and brushing bits of leaf off his uniform.

“Leave the plant here,” Ben instructed. Finn didn’t argue, just gave him a thorough look-over.

“So how’re you doing, man?” Finn asked easily as the two men left her lawn, her new mum next to the pumpkins. “Plant I got you still alive? You get her number yet? She have a boyfriend? Is your only relationship still with the written word?”

Rey kept her head down, sipping away at her tea as Ben’s screen door creaked open.

“Why would I need her number? She lives next door.”

Rey turned Finn’s business card in her fingers, thinking over his brief story. It was a lot for a two minute exchange, and she ran each of his sentences through several times. 

What it seemed to come down to for Rey was that Ben was at the beginning of a fresh start. His isolation, his peace and quiet, his unwavering routine, were all part of a life he’d chosen as part of his rebuilding process. Where that left her, new friend or nuisance, she didn’t know.

Rey didn’t have time to ponder once her break was over, the church window was a mess. Several rocks had been thrown through the century-old glazing. Rey would have to finish cleaning out the broken bits, cut and sand new glass to the exact size, foil and weld them in, and then try to match the perfect 1918 calligraphy listing the names of that church’s war dead. She had photos of it to work from, but the process was slow.

Each broken piece removed was evaluated to see if it could be cut down to be reused in a different part of the window. Those that couldn’t went into her carefully hoarded colourful glass inventory to be made into something new. She would turn the salvage into something new, something beautiful.

XXX

“I thought you might want this,” said a low voice from beside her. Rey blinked you from her drawing pad, the button fly of an old pair of 501s level with her eyes. “So you don’t have to try to sneak it off the curb,” he finished with she could have sworn was a hint of a teasing tone.

Looking up, Rey saw a cereal box that was rattling slightly.

“It’s a broken mirror,” he explained. “I was trying to take it off the wall and it cracked.”

“How did you break the other glass?” she asked, embarrassed he’d caught her stealing his recycling.

“Hux put a fist through cupboard window.”

“Need it repaired?”

“No, I just took the whole door off. Open concept, that’s a thing, right?”

“Have a seat, I’ll see if I can use the pieces for anything.”

Settling in beside her in the space she made sitting up, Ben looked around the street from her usual perspective.

“You had a good view of the man across the street’s incident last week.”

“Craig? Yeah, he does that. Three hundred and sixty-four days a year you won’t hear him or see him, but once a year he drinks himself belligerent.”

“He always naked?”

“That day? Yeah, usually. Yells at everyone from his porch until he passes out.”

“It’s strange, everything slightly to the left of how I usually see it.”

It felt good, sitting next to someone.

“If you’re ever bored of your own porch,” she said lightly, “you can always come read on mine.”

He nodded slowly, no promises.

Tracing a finger through colourful splotches on her porch rail, he drew back his finger and examined the dust.

“It’s glass,” she explained. “I do stained glass. I like to do my hand sanding out here.”

“Hence the rubbish theft, makes sense. Is it part of another business or on your own?”

“Mostly my own,” she said. “But I have a woman who brings me commissions from her collective, and she sells my work in her chain of shops in touristy towns. I buy most of my glass like a regular person for those projects, but I have a soft spot for good salvage and one-off pieces.”

Like the short supply of words they had between them had been exhausted by the brief exchange, Ben politely took his leave and left.

Rey was back to work on the church window the next couple days, tucked away in her shop, living off of granola bars and caffeinated pop. She hoped Ben didn’t think she was avoiding making good on her offer to share her porch.

Walking out into her dark backyard on day three, cracking and stretching her arms and shoulders, she hoped she was done. She’d left everything to cool, hungry and sore in her satisfaction. Just the ornate writing was left, but that was later-Rey’s problem.

Ben was out in the dawn light when she came out, bundled in her blanket, to eat her pre-sleep oatmeal. He waved cautiously, then walked over, his paperback tucked in his jacket pocket, a steaming metal camp mug of coffee in his hand.

“You look pleased,” he said in his low, quiet way.

“I’m almost done a big project,” she crowed, joy touching her dark-shadowed eyes, “a whole church window restored.” His eyebrows flew up, impressed. “Want to see?” she asked without thinking.

The invitation hung there.

She remembered Finn’s words: he shot them. 

Ben didn’t... seem... dangerous.

“Sure,” he agreed. Inhaling her oatmeal, Rey led him around her house instead of through, allowing him only into her tiny wooden sanctuary.

He gave a low whistle at the enormous colourful window. Blown up photos of the writing littered her desk.

“You need to paint this on?” he asked, tracing the letters with a finger.

“I’m not very good at it, but it’s part of the project, so I’ll tape it up to replicate it and just hope for the best.”

“I could do it,” he said softly. “I-“ he hesitated, like he was revealing something he had been concealing most of his life. “I do calligraphy.”

“Can you show me some?” Rey asked, not willing to take a chance on her beautiful windows without some proof.

“Let me take these,” he said, gathering the photos. “Sleep, knock on my door when you’re ready.”

She let him leave with the pictures, wondering if this exchange made them friends.

XXX

No knocking was needed. When Rey brought out her steaming bowl of dinner/breakfast to the porch early that evening, Ben was ready. Unfurling his huge body from the aluminum lawn chair and bounding over, all coiled energy and suppressed excitement, he took the steps in one long-legged go. 

“Here,” he said, flipping open a sketchbook. The original photos had been neatly clipped to the top, and even without a close inspection Rey saw they were identical.

“How on earth…” she said, putting down her dinner to receive the book. “Ben, this is amazing. Do you think you’d be able to replicate it on something as slippery as glass with a special brush?”

“Let me try on some scraps,” he said, eyes betraying the eagerness he tried to hide behind a casual tone. “After you eat, of course.”

Rey indicated he should sit down beside her, and she turned in the swing to face him.

“So, Ben,” she said between mouthfuls of hot noodles, “what do you do when you’re not reading?”

She watched internal emotions play across his eyes, and his answer was short.

“Sleep. Exercise. Clean. You?”

“Yeah,” she said quietly, “that’s, yeah, that’s about it. Plus work. Research for work. Drum up more work. My bookkeeping. Are we boring people, Ben?”

He snorted, the sound shaking the swing and Rey.

“Probably, but who is there to impress?”

“Fair enough,” she smiled. He turned away from her, rubbing at the swing chain with nervous fingers. It needed more lubricant before winter.

Bolting her food in a manner that usually made spectators concerned for her safety, Rey ran her empty dishes inside and brought out the key to her workshop.

It was a familiar, comfortable space, smelling of wood and metal, greenery and chemicals, and as before Ben filled it entirely. He shifted carefully around the finished window, finding a bare spot to work. 

Putting on her heaviest gloves, Rey sifted through her collection of broken glass until she found a sheet big enough for a few words, with a similar texture to the old church glass.

“Don’t cut yourself,” she warned, eyeing up the size difference in their hands. “I don’t have gloves to fit you.”

“It’s fine,” he dismissed, lining up the paint and brushes just so in front of the calligraphy samples. “Light’s perfect, table’s steady, and I have room to move my elbows. That’s all I need.”

Trying not to make him nervous, Rey looked around her workshop from the corner. He was right. She’d installed good solid working lights herself, bright and comfortable, and every bench was exactly level. Attention turning to the man before her, she watched the flex and move of his back and shoulders as he made every deliberate stroke and dip.

“Passable?” he asked, shifting to make room for her to slip in beside him. The workshop seemed smaller. Stepping into the heat that radiated off of him, Rey examines his work.

“You’re hired,” she breathed, looking at the perfectly formed script. 

XXX

“Dammit,” said Rey, checking the time on her phone. Her eyes drifted back to the page of her open book.

“Hm?” Ben asked from his own porch. His feet were up on the rail, coffee steaming in the chilly September 30th morning air. A book sat face-down on each of his denim-clad thighs, as if he were deciding what to start next.

“I made the mistake of starting a new book while I ate breakfast and now I don’t want to go work,” she laughed.

“Read me the back,” he said, coming over to the closest edge of his porch. He sipped at his coffee while she read the description.

“I’ll read it to you while you work,” he said with a shrug. “Be over in five.” He disappeared back into his house.

Rey squealed on the inside, scooping up her dishes and her books. She dashed to the shed, turning on the lights, plugging in the space heater and her soldering tools. There would be just enough room for a chair and a very large man in the workshop with a little rearranging. Belatedly, she wondered if she should have brushed her hair that morning instead of immediately stuffing it in a slouchy toque.

“Hey, festive,” he greeted casually as he approached the open door and saw the hundreds of unfinished holiday decorations. He held up the folding chair from his porch. “Where should I put this?” She pointed out the clear corner while he lifted his coffee mug. “This allowed in here?”

“Yeah, that’s fine,” Rey agreed, quickly scanning for hydro connections in case the china mug broke. “Your voice sounds a bit thick. You okay to read?”

He cleared his throat.

“It’s fine, living alone I don’t always use my voice a lot.”

“When did you last speak,” she asked curiously.

“When did we last speak?”

“Oh.”

“Mind if I start from the beginning?”

“Not at all.”

Rey was entranced by his voice a few moments, watching him read the first page.

“Is this going to be too distracting?” he asked seriously.

“No, no go on,” she rushed, turning to the little pieces of glass waiting to become Christmas ornaments. Today was an easy run, popping wings on cardinals. She’d paint the details onto the opalescent red glass later, once they were set. Everything had been copper foiled, she’d finished that yesterday, so today was just a long day of flux and solder, flux and solder, flux and solder. 

Rey threw on her plain black apron, decorated with a few small burn holes and a mosaic-like sheen of glass powder from her electric grinder, her work glasses, and protective gloves.

Ben’s reading faltered for a moment, and Rey reflexively looked over to him. She tapped her glasses with her gloves and smiled.

“You should see me in my grinding mask. Is this going to be too distracting?”

He smiled back, a small thing he aimed at the book, and read on.

By the time he got into new material and Rey had her third cardinal tacked, she had stopped hearing his voice and was beginning to float along in the story.

“Rey? Rey?” he was saying, pulling her out of her reverie. A flock of ruby birds sat drying on her work bench. Ben’s stomach growled alarmingly. “Welcome back,” he said, watching her eyes focus behind the plastic goggles. “I was asking what your plan was for lunch.”

“Lunch?” she asked, confused. “But I’m working.”

“One does typically break for lunch while they’re working,” he teased softly. The smile faded. Her hands were already drifting back to her tools, and he’d lost her last scrap of attention.

XXX

In Ben’s dated yellow kitchen, he plated two peanut butter and jam sandwiches onto a piece of paper towel. Dividing the can’s worth of hot chicken noodle soup into his only two clean mugs, and dropping in spoons from a very limited supply, he wondered briefly what he was doing.

Cultivating a friendship with his lovely and innocent neighbour was a terrible idea, but there was a loneliness to her, to them both really, he couldn’t ignore. 

There was something about her that drew in him when he wanted to be left out. She lingered in the real life thoughts he tried to keep sedated with fiction, and gave his eyes a place to stray from the pages of words that kept him sane.

“It’s fine,” he said aloud, slipping a couple bananas into his pocket for their dessert. “It’s just being friendly with the neighbour. Nothing more.”


	2. October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mind the tags

October

The neighbourhood changed in October. Summer nights blended into earlier evenings, when people remembered a little too late to shut their front curtains. Down the street, Rey could see what everyone watched after dinner.

Wood smoke and patio party noise curled up from backyards, hot weather folks sucking the dregs of summer, cool weather folk tentatively emerging from hibernation to be social again.

Rey put on a heavier jacket for reading on the swing after work, grateful for the bright light that came on at dusk. Ben came over more often to read with her, frustrated by the dim lantern’s glow at his own porch.

They shared meals more often now, bowls of cereal, late night toast, a pot of tea. Rey discovered if she set out a bowl of apples, Ben would unconsciously continue eating one after another until they were gone. Her yew bushes were so full of cores thrown over the rail he’d had to shamefacedly brush them all down and kick them under the bushes before Rey noticed.

“It’s cold,” Rey complained one evening when Ben came up the steps with chair and book in hand. “I might need to go in soon tonight.”

She’d put her book down, cold fingers stuffed in her pocket to warm, simply watching the fiery colours of the leaves.

“Here,” Ben offered, lifting her legs and slipping into the swing beside her. He let her legs fall back on top of his, tucking the blanket in around them. “I’ll add some extra body heat.”

Rey’s body temperature indeed rose several degrees from his proximity. Ben’s hair smelled like wood smoke, a smudge of electric orange cheese powder on his shirt only visible at close range. Ink was soaked into the callous on his finger, like he’d been practicing his calligraphy again.

She closed her eyes, feeling the shape of him against her. He was trusting her as a friend to respond as a friend, and that left no room for her hormonal responses, she told herself. What she had taken to be a lack of interest in romance had turned out to be a lack of Ben. Her body and her heart thrummed quietly against him, soaking him in.

XXX

Routine was broken, as it so often is, by illness. 

As the phone rang in her ear, Rey imagined Ben somewhere in his house, scowling. He’d be debating whether to even pick it up.

“Why can’t you text like proper people,” she whined a little, using her eighty-fifth tissue that morning to wipe her streaming nose.

“Hello?” came the voice that had a direct line to her spine. She straightened up under her blanket poncho, nearly overturning her tea.

“Ben,” she rasped, “I just wanted to warn you off coming by today. I woke up with a head cold and I need to quarantine.”

“Oh dear,” he said simply. “Do you have everything you need for the day? I can do a run to the store for soup and ice cream.”

“I’m alright,” she laughed awkwardly, touched by the offer. “I’ll miss your reading today, I’ll let you know when I’m safe for company.”

“Are you going to sleep?”

“No, probably research and draw. I have a design I need to plan out.”

There was a pause.

“I could read to you over the phone for awhile.”

The air was sucked out of Rey’s lungs.

“Rey?” he finally asked. “Are you still there?” 

“You’d have to come get my book and I don’t want you to see me like this.” The honesty was unintentional. She’d meant to say she didn’t want to get him sick.

“Drop it in your mailbox in ten minutes,” he said. She could almost hear his eye roll. “I’ll come by and get it.”

The clank of the metal lid of her mailbox rang out a few minutes later, steps across her porch receding.

Rey snuck down, a tissue shoved up each nostril, and cracked open the door. He hadn’t given her enough time, he’d said ten minutes. 

She saw white sticking out of the top of the mailbox. Peeking in, it was paper towel. Inside was a sliced orange. Smiling to herself, Rey deposited her book in its place and brought in Ben’s little gift.

Her laptop atop her lap while she burrowed under the bed covers, later Rey filled a folder with images of mythological firebirds, rising phoenixes, and real birds of prey. Ben had read to her for most of the morning on her speakerphone.

“Rey, you still there?” Ben asked after a notebook slid free and hit her phone with a clunk.

Rey didn’t answer. Her laptop pushed to the side, her head deep into her pillow, he heard the distinctive sound of a snore.

He rang at a little after one, to tell her to check her porch for toast and soup, and again at six for a sandwich and cut fruit. Feeling spoiled, Rey went to bed early that night, dreaming of dark eyes and kind hands.

XXX

“Eff,” Rey breathed, both pockets definitely empty. 

Her phone, wallet, and her keys were gone, which meant they were either driving away in the backseat of taxi cab she’d taken home from Leia’s Thanksgiving dinner, or at Leia’s. Han had given the driver his credit card to preauthorize, since he’d promised to drive Rey home, forgotten, and then gotten into the craft brews and edibles in the basement with his old band mate, Chewie.

There was a key hidden by the back door, but she had forgotten to turn on lights before leaving for the bus to Leia’s in the early afternoon. The odds of finding it in the garden at this hour were low, but she had to try.

She looked over at Ben’s porch. It was dark, all his lights off in the house. 

Why had she stayed until after midnight watching feel-good weepy YouTube videos with Leia? Why had they thought the second bottle of rosé was a good idea? If she’d come home earlier she’d have had a perfectly acceptable excuse to knock on his door, talk to him, and ask to use his phone. 

“Efffffffff,” she breathed again.

The neighbourhood was nearly silent, autumn night sounds muffled by a misty almost-rain. The hedge rustled in the breeze as she crept into her backyard, working the gate latch slowly so she wouldn’t disturb her neighbours. The key had been wedged into a crack in the old aluminum window well surround, and covered with the sparkly white landscaping pebbles beloved by the generation who championed bedazzling and disco wear.

Kneeling carefully on the damp patio stones, trying to ignore how many potato bugs and spiders she was about to touch, she reached down into the well and began to rub at the aluminum, shifting pebbles.

And then she was airborne.

In one move she went from the ground to soaring in an arc, a fist wrapped in her blacked hooded raincoat. She slammed onto her back with a crunching sensation in her ribs, her skull thankfully hitting the soggy ground beyond the patio stones.

Too winded to speak, Rey felt herself flipped over, her cheek pressed into the puddled grass so that she had to strain up to not take in water. A heavy knee sunk into her spine, her hands wrenched back and gripped together at her lower back.

“You picked the wrong house, asshole,” hissed a familiar voice low in her ear. “Now we’re going to take a walk to my kitchen. I’m going to call the police, and while we’re waiting for them to come get you, we’ll have a chat about what will happen to you if you ever come anywhere near this-“ he jerked her body up painfully so that her head snapped up towards the back door, “-house again.” His head lowered down to her ear again, his voice dripping murder. “Come back and I will not involve the police.”

Rey was lifted sharply, her arms still twisted against her back, her wrists bound in one of his bear paws.

“Get moving,” he commanded quietly, shoving her towards the gate.

“B-b-“ she rasped, trying to catch her breath.

“Shut up,” he whispered, clasping his free hand over her mouth, puddle water dripping between his fingers, “if you wake up anyone in that house you will regret it.”

Rey stumbled over the uneven ground, her back crushed against his broad chest, her feet barely able to touch the ground. His body flooded hers with heat, and she could feel bare skin where her wrists touched his hard belly.

Stunned, Rey told her body she was absolutely not to be turned on by any of this.

When he released her mouth to unlatch the gate she took her chance.

“Ben, it’s me,” she cried out softly.

“Rey?” his voice cracked. He released her immediately, snapping back away from her several steps. With the sudden loss of his structure, Rey stumbled and struggled for balance. “Oh my god, Rey. Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, I’m fi- ow,” she cut off, pain radiating from low in her rib cage while she straightened back up, “fine.”

“You’re not. I hurt you. I thought you were breaking into- Oh god, I’m so sorry, Rey. You can report me for assault, I’ll cooperate fully.”

Rey’s eyes shot to Ben’s figure in the meagre light. His fists were clenched at his sides, tension rolling from his dishevelled hair to his bare feet under the black sweatpants.

“It was a misunderstanding,” she said, wheezing. “I’m locked out. There’s a key hidden back here but I can’t find it in the dark.”

“I can call you an ambulance to the hospital to get checked out, or pay for a taxi,” he offered, stepping further away from her, backing himself against the gate.

“I think I’m fine,” Rey lied. “Can I use your phone, though?”

Rey heard Ben thinking.

“I only have a landline. It’s in my kitchen. In my house.”

“I’m not scared of being alone with you in your house,” Rey said bluntly.

“Okay,” he agreed, doubt in his voice.

He opened the gate, and gave her plenty of room to pass. She made for the porch but he cleared his throat awkwardly.

“Front’s locked. I was out back when I saw you.”

“What were you doing out there in the dark this time of night?”

“Couldn’t sleep. Was looking at the stars,” he admitted. “Sometimes they’re the only thing that feels-.” He trailed off. Rey didn’t push.

“How did you get here so fast?” Rey asked, crossing their lawns to get to his gate on the other side of his house.

“Came over the hedge.”

“Must be nice to be built like a rhino,” she laughed lightly, then winced.

“I’m so sorry, Rey,” he repeated, distress creeping back into his voice.

She grabbed his wrist, a coughing fit overtaking her. The jarring movement against her ribs made her fingers flex tightly around the thick joint in time to the strokes of pain.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, scooping her up while she coughed. Rey lost the opportunity to savour being in his arms, awake this time, to the pain in her chest. 

He carried her up his back stoop, ducking a shoulder to hit every light switch he passed. The little house illuminated in a blaze of electricity, like Ben could make up for the lack of supervision with LEDs. In the kitchen he gently lowered her into a padded 50’s diner chair, hands coming off her right away when she could have used a comforting linger.

“The phone is here,” he pointed beside her to a special built-in nook in the butter yellow painted wall, just above the kitchen table. An old phonebook sat beside the rotary telephone, likely many years out of date.

“Thank you,” she said softly. Making a call to the taxi company, she confirmed they had her things and the driver would drop them off after he delivered his next customer. “Can I wait here?”

“Yeah,” he said, leaning against the counter on the opposite side of the kitchen, slowly spinning the paper towel roll. He’d found a faded grey T-shirt while she’d been on the phone.

Avoiding looking at him, Rey began to systematically creep her fingers along her lower chest, pushing slightly until she found a spot that made her grunt.

“You’ve been drinking, Rey. I can smell it. If you change your mind about reporting me for assault once you’re sober I’ll cooper-“

“Ben, what would that little talk have been about, while you were waiting for the police with your burglar?”

He didn’t make eye contact with her, picking at something stuck onto his coil burner.

“Standard threats.”

“What’s a standard threat?”

“Come here again and I’ll etc etc.”

She smiled a tired crooked smirk.

“Thanks for having my back.”

He didn’t answer. He was likely imaging her back and the knee shaped bruise she was developing there.

Rey looked around what she could see from the chair. The house was spartan to the extreme, just Mr Rook’s old furnishings, and a scatter of paperbacks. A faded but comfortable-looking blanket lay on the back of the seventies-era couch, the smell of wood smoke from the living room.

“When I was sick and you read to me, did you sit here in this chair with the receiver up for hours?” she asked, filling in mental blanks.

He didn’t answer.

“Do anything for Thanksgiving?”

“I don’t have any family.”

“Oh. I don’t either but I went to a friend’s.”

Ben didn’t speak again until she left, saying a frail goodnight to her once she had her things back from the driver.

Nothing about the situation should have turned Rey on, she argued to herself. She was in pain, cold and wet, and still a little drunk.

Naked by the time she passed her bedroom laundry basket, depositing in the dirty garments, she chose sock drawer over shower. She could smell Ben in her hair, feel the warmth of his body crushing hers, the ease with which he took both her wrists in one of his hands.

In the dark, curtains open, Rey brought herself quickly to a shuddering orgasm with the help of a reliable friend. Her muscles unexpectedly squeezed her injured bones along with the vibrator inside of her. Crying out loudly, the sound echoed around the room and evidently through the glass of the bedroom window.

A heartbeat later her cell phone rang. Sober Rey wouldn’t have answered it, but Rey wasn’t sober.

“Sorry,” he breathed without introduction. “I heard a strange noise. Are you okay?”

Rey sucked in air so hard she had to slap a hand over her mouth to muffle any more sounds until she could get her bearings.

“Oh yeah, I’m fine,” she squeaked, her naked state on her own bed made risque by his presence on the phone. She switched off the vibrator in case he could hear the low rumble, but left it in.

“My offer of sending you to the hospital stands.”

“I’m okay, Ben. I just, uh, sneezed. Too hard. And it hurt. Where. I’m hurt. But not very hurt, not hospital and guilt hurt,” she finished unconvincingly.

“Okay, sorry for bothering you. Goodnight, Rey.”

He hung up, the audible click of his receiver going down strange to her modern ears.

She felt like she was already ready for round two after hearing his voice, but she knew now that it would be painful.

“Effff,” she whispered, hitting the on switch.

XXX

Next day, Ben came over without his coffee or book, and with a cornucopia of words more than usual.

“I’d like to apologize again for last night,” he said, standing awkwardly on the middle step. “I should have offered last night, but if you aren’t going to seek medical attention would you let me take check out your injury? My credentials are expired but I was a first responder for-“

“Yeah, it’s fine, Ben. That’s thoughtful, thank you. What do you need me to do?”

He chewed his lips on the inside, a subtle motion she watched with interest. 

“It’s fine too if you don’t want to, Ben,” she said quietly, she hoped reassuringly.

Finally he responded in a cooler, more professional tone.

“Can I sit next to you, and examine the area that hurts?”

Shuffling over on the swing, pulling her polar fleece lap blanket off his half, she made room for the large man.

“Here.”

Lowering himself gingerly, still half-convinced the chains would pull out of the porch’s upper beams, Ben stared at the point on Rey’s shirt where she’d held it in pain the night before.

The drizzly-grey morning light was bright enough to see well, so Ben didn’t have to look hard to see the spreading bruise on Rey’s ribs when she lifted up her shirt for him. He could see the bottom of her plain bra, the curved wire and small protruding breast cups.

Raising his right hand slowly, he touched the epicentre of the bruise. Rey hissed, but didn’t stop him from feeling for the breaks.

“You should go for an X-ray,” he commented, guiding her around to look at the bruise on the other side. Rey could feel his hand spanning the entire width of the narrowest part of her lower back.

“Let me take you,” he pleaded in a low dark voice. Something in Rey thrilled and then flopped. He still meant to the doctor, of course.

“Maybe,” she said without promise, thinking about how much she needed to get done that week, and how she was going to answer questions about how she received her injuries. 

The last thing she wanted for Ben was trouble, and this seemed like precisely the kind of incident that Hux-fellow was hoping for.

“If the breaks are uncomplicated you’ll just need time and rest while they knit,” he said, gently tugging down her shirt for her and shifting away.

“I can’t stop working,” she explained, “I have to finish up all the detail work and packaging for ornaments going out in my big mid-October shipment, and a complicated commission from a friend.”

Ben tapped his fingertips on the swing arm.

“You need a workshop monkey. Someone to lift and bend, reach the top shelf.”

“Are you volunteering?”

“I am the one who injured you.”

“Because you thought you were protecting me from an intruder,” she pointed out.

“Regardless of intent, the impact is that you need help because of me. When are you heading into the workshop today?”

“Soonish?”

“I’ll be there,” he said grimly, getting up to make more coffee. He’d found a large thermos at a thrift store the perfect size for an entire pot. “Bring your book.”

XXX

The windstorm woke Rey early that morning with the distinctive crashing sound of her blue bins overturning. She peeked blearily through her window. Cans and bottles rolled across the street, sidewalk, and gutters, mixed in with the autumn leaves. Groaning, she threw on a jacket and boots and went to clean up.

Up and down the street many bins had gone over in the dawn light, though none as enthusiastically as hers. Ben’s paper bin was on its side, a scatter of debris on his lawn. Rey started with those lighter bits, crossing the orange and gold strewn grass to pick up his cereal boxes and bill envelopes.

A stray page caught her eye, the health unit logo at the top. Checking to make sure Ben wasn’t on his way out or looking through his window, Rey guiltily scanned the page.

It was a results print out dated the previous week for sexually transmitted diseases. Rey put the sheet in his paper bin and piled heavier cardboard on top.

Was Ben worried about infections, Rey pondered, scooping up cans and bottles and dumping them back in their place. Was this a routine thing for him? Maybe he just liked to know he was clear? Was he planning ahead for a new relationship?

Well, he was clear, she thought. As someday who daydreamed frequently about him, that was always good to know. 

“What’s the plan today,” he said later, taking her key and unlocking her workshop for her. He switched on lights and surveyed the empty table. “Ornaments? Repairs? Your new project?”

“New project,” Rey said, pulling a pair of extra large cut-proof gloves from her jacket pocket. They’d arrived late the night before, after they’d gone in, maintaining an unusual amount of surprise between the neighbours.

“You’ll need these.”

“You bought me gloves?”

“You’ve been handling glass.”

“A little bit of blood-“ he started dismissively.

“-will ruin the pages of your library books,” she retorted.

He put on the gloves.

“My friend-slash-kind-of-boss dropped off this box of broken glass that’s been sitting in her garage for twenty years. She’s the one who commissioned the phoenix rising window hanger I’ve been designing. What?”

Furrowing his brow at the handwriting on the white cardboard bankers box, Ben lifted it onto the lowest workbench so Rey didn’t have to bend or lean to see in.

“Nothing,” he lied, pulling out a small once-beautiful Tiffany-style lampshade broken into three pieces along the joins. He scraped the ‘Ben’s Room’ masking tape label off the bottom of the lamp with his thumbnail, balled it up, and flicked it into the trash. 

“She wants me to see if I can make the piece using a much of this as possible. It’s a memorial for her son, sounds like these are things around the house he broke at low points and they’d never bothered to put them out on the curb.”

“I didn’t break all of it,” he murmured defensively.

“Pardon,” Rey asked, shifting through bigger pieces. “I missed that.”

“He broke a lot of stuff,” Ben assessed instead, lifting out a heavy red salad bowl cracked down the middle. “A lot of this is curved,” he said, changing the subject. “Can you still work with it?”

“Oh yeah, I have equipment to flatten,” she said, standing on tie toes to reach something that at the very bottom. 

She winced, and Ben put a hand on her waist to guide her slowly back down. Even through the gloves his fingers were like a heating pad, easing the pain. She pressed her hand on top of his until she’d caught her breath. Waiting patiently, he watched for her eyes to reopen.

“That’s my job,” he reminded her gently, picking up the glass shard she wanted and placing it on the bench. “So this came from your boss?”

“Leia, yeah,” she nodded, holding an orange shard from dessert plate over her sketch to see where she could make it work best.

“Does Leia come by often?” he asked casually.

“Nope, usually I go to her.”

“She talk about this angry teenage son?”

“No, she gets pretty emotional so it doesn’t come up often. His name was Ben, like yours.”

“He’s dead?”

“I don’t know, but the way the Organas behave I imagine he must be. It feels like the Organas are still grieving his loss pretty heavily, so I don’t pry.”

“Their family name is Organa?”

“Yeah,” Rey said, looking at the white glass panels on her design and comparing her shards. “Well, Leia’s is, so I imagine so. I don’t really know Han at all. Maybe he has a different name. I’ve never asked.”

Ben brought a handful of pieces out of her regular hoard of scavenged glass. It was the white tinted panes of his cupboard door.

“This was broken in anger,” he explained to her questioning eyes. “It will fit the spirit of the piece.”

“You’ve been hiding a secret,” she teased in a mock-serious voice.

“Oh?” She smiled at his alarm.

“You’re secretly a bit of an artist, aren’t you?”

“Yeah, maybe,” he laughed, relieved. “Calligraphy got me beat up enough in middle school, but maybe if I fill my brain with enough books they’ll start falling back out and I’ll write my own.”

“I’d read your emo poetry or weird experimental novel,” she said supportively. 

“It would have to be a mystery novel,” he said, “because I have no idea what I’d write about.”

“Steamy regency romance or nothing.”

“Well, I have arrested a lot of people for indecent acts in public, probably seen enough things and heard enough slang to count as research. It’s just like porn in wigs and big dresses, right?”

Rey’s expression became guarded, and she almost dropped the scrap cardinal glass she was shifting into the design.

“What?” Ben asked, “I’m sorry, was that too far? I didn’t mean to-“

“No, no, talk about porn and wigs all you want. I just haven’t heard you mention your old job before.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

The conversation died. Ben’s face grew pale and nauseated, his body tense. Rey saw the light in his eyes dim and then darken.

“Hey,” she said softly, not touching him. “Let’s work on our regency romance character’s names. Bridgitte Tittier. Xavier Von Schlong.”

“Go on,” he said with a weak smile.

“Bodicea Rippington, Duchess of Cockshire.”

“You’re good at this,” he observed.

“Oh, I can go all night.”

“I bet you can.”

“See? We can even write flirtatious banter. You just need a co-author.”

“You’re hired,” Ben said, beginning to actually look a bit brighter. “You can teach me the ways of the romance genre. And your pen name?”

“B.J. Harddick.”

“That has to be mine. Yours could be I.B. Horne.”

Rey kept Ben smiling until they packed it in for the day, but she hadn’t forgotten how quickly he’d shut down.

XXX

It wasn’t until she heard the first “Trick or treat!” shouted at her front door that Rey realized how time had escaped her. Pulling off her gloves and cutting the lights and power to the shed, Rey crossed her yard rubbing glass dust off her hands onto her jeans.

She was mostly ready for Halloween.

Pulling a stash of candy from a closet in an unused bedroom, she dumped it into a mixing bowl and brought it to the front porch. 

Three Marshalls, a Skye, and a tiny confused pumpkin held out plastic tubs to collect their treats.

Rey sat on her bottom step with the bowl, seeing most of her neighbours for the first and last time in a year, and distributed the spooky goodness. She didn’t often suffer from loneliness, at least not the kind she actively noticed, but there was something about the night that made her feel like part of a real community.

As the costumes became less adorable wee ones and more slapdash teenager, Rey began to look around. Light poured out of most of the houses up and down the street, some done up excessively with spooky noises, fake graveyards, and pop-up dads disguised as masked scare crows, others like hers with a pumpkin or two. 

Ben had a solitary jack o’lantern on his top step, a flickering candle the only illumination on a silver mixing bowl bearing an optimistic “please take one” note. His porch lights were off, his house lights were off, and she was curious about what sort of treats Ben Solo would put out. 

Leaving her bowl, Rey crept over. She snuck up the stairs, peering into the bowl. Peanut butter cups, damn him. Sneaking out a handful, she turned to slink off.

“Ah, but where is your costume,” a dark voice teased. Caught, Rey let the orange plastic wrappers slide back out between her fingers.

“Hi Ben,” she said, tingling at the unexpected sound of him in the darkness. It was something she didn’t think about regularly. Especially not in the shower, or right before she went to sleep at night.

“You can have them,” he offered. “Just blow out the candle so the kids stop coming over.”

Feeling like blowing out a candle was an unnecessarily sexy act, Rey huffed out the flame and plunked the pumpkin’s lid back on.

“Want to trade?” she asked. “I have lots of chocolate bars left.”

He loomed out of the shadows, all black jeans and worn black leather jacket.

“Let’s do this,” he said seriously. They sat together in the blazing lights of Rey’s front porch, solemnly dividing up their spoils between them on the swing

Dropping a little Butterfingers into the darkness below Rey, Ben swore and went down to his knees to find the shiny packet.

“Trick or treat!”

“Go away,” Ben told the final group of teenagers eyeing Rey’s steps. He held his splayed hand in front of the bowl in her lap, hiding it from view. “This is mine and I’m eating all of this.”

“I’m sure you are,” one snorted, heading back to the sidewalk.

“Little punk,” Ben muttered, sounding three times his age. “Think he was making fun of my size?”

“No,” Rey snorted, “I think he was implying you we’re going to eat me-“ she looked down at him and blinked at his innocent confusion, “my, my Halloween candy. You know what, yes, I think he was definitely making fun of your size. Punk,” she laughed, taking his hand and pressing another chocolate into it.

XXX

Later that night, his stomach eighty percent chocolate, Ben awoke from a vivid dream of kneeling in front of the porch swing. Soft bare thighs had trembled around him while he ate and drank his fill of sweet liquids and moans.

He ran his fingers through his hair, remembering how dream-Rey had pulled and tormented it. How her body had shifted around his tongue, the swing responding to their movement, her bucks, his emphatic grip spreading her knees further apart.

“It’s mine,” he’d moaned, Rey a fountain against his mouth, noisy and ripe.

“Right, so that’s what the little bastard was talking about,” he complained to his bedroom ceiling, finally understanding. 

It had been a long time since Ben had done anything remotely sexual. To be honest, he had come to consider that part of his life closed, his cock retired alongside his badge, gun, and sanity.

Maybe they were, in fact, separate at last. Maybe there was hope for him to pursue a relationship as a mature adult. Maybe Rey would be the one to break the spell.

He noticed the pronounced tent in his blankets. “Ah dammit.”

A wave of nausea hit, background noises ringing in his ears.

Maybe he needed a lot more time.


	3. November

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional notes for this chapter include:  
\- brief mention of off-page but upsetting harm to an animal  
\- substance abuse past & present  
\- brief mentions of child abuse, incarceration, violence   
\- blood  
\- smut train pulling into station

November

Magic swirled around Rey, shimmering over Ben’s body as they kissed. The joining of their powers was triumphant, exhilarating, tangling their minds and bodies in the euphoric high that had brought them to this moment.

His clothes fell open, like his mouth, gaping for her touch. She reached sparkling fingers towards the entrance to his soft leather trews, consuming his gasps with her lips. Hot flesh rose to her hand. It would be so easy to just lift her heavy skirts right here on the tower’s stone floor and-

“You haven’t turned a page in fifteen minutes. You okay?”

Rey almost shot out of her swing, having no recollection of Ben moving his chair and late afternoon snack to her porch. A gust of fresh autumn wind carried the scent of a thousand dry leaves past her, welcoming her back to reality. 

Ben was eating peanut butter straight out of the jar with a spoon.

“You’re flushed. Are you feeling feverish?” he asked, reaching a gentle hand out to cup her cheeks, press against her forehead.

“I- No, I’m fine, I-“ she sputtered, the fire in her body in her underpants, not her immune system.

“You seem really flustered,” he pressed, quirking an eyebrow. He plucked her book out of her limp fingers and scanned the page she was reading. With a snort, he inserted it back into her hands.

“I’ll put it on my to-read list,” he said gravely. “Should I leave you alone with your thoughts?”

“Alone may be the problem,” she laughed, trying to clear her head. “Clearly it’s been awhile since I dated if a love scene can rattle me.”

“Lack of interest or lack of candidates?”

“Both,” she sighed, marking her place in her book as she would most definitely be coming back to it. Alone. “And since I work from home I don’t casually meet many people. If I was serious about dating I’d probably have to go out in the evenings.”

Ben made a noise of disgust.

“I understand. I agreed to go to a pub with some former colleagues, Finn, for one, and I’ve regretted it ever since.”

“Rough. When?”

“Tonight. Wearing my best plaid shirt and everything.”

“Stay out of trouble, lumberjack,” she warned, realizing a moment too late it wasn’t her place. He saluted wryly.

“Ma’am,” he confirmed, then relaxed his posture with a scoff. “As long as Hux doesn’t crash, things will be fine.”

“Why would Hux cause trouble?”

“I shot his friends.”

“Ah,” Rey said, brain blanking on an appropriate follow up.

Ben changed the subject quickly, brows furrowed.

“Here.” He took the book again, and settled back into his chair. “Close your eyes, I’ll read slow.” There was a wicked, amused look forming in his dark eyes.

“No, no, that’s fine, you don’t-“

“Shhhh,” Ben hushed, “let me indulge your dark side for awhile.” 

If sitting next to Ben on an average day was problematic for Rey’s increasingly urgent sexual needs, the slow drip of sensual words from his mouth was torture. He formed every word like he could apply it to her skin, lingering over lascivious details that coiled around inside her throat.

“I need to go get ready for tonight,” he said at last, breaking the spell. “I should go head home and shower. The better my hygiene the less people will assume I’m a disturbed hermit.”

Leaving the book on the chair, leaving his entire chair, Ben couldn’t turn fast enough to hide the erection straining his jeans. He was gone before Rey caught her breath, mouth dry and thighs soaked.

No one was around. She was tempted to relieve the pressure right there on her porch, but decency drove her inside. The afternoon light came in golden and slanted through the stained glass transom, colourful fairy light for her magic-fantasy-fuelled desire.

Leaning against the wooden front door, she shed her outer layers in a frenzy to comfortably reach her slick labia. Rey stroked herself roughly, trying to make her slim fingers feel bigger, stronger. His voice echoed in her head, driving her to strain deeper, fill herself better. Nothing in her sock drawer would satisfy the Ben Solo-sized hollow aching inside her. 

“Dammit,” she breathed, a lacklustre orgasm whimpering through her pelvis after an eternity of trying. It had barely hurt her healing ribs, which was her new benchmark of success.

A knock came at the door behind her, resounding through her body. Her fingers sticky in her underpants, her only other garments were her socks and bra.

“Rey?”

Ben didn’t raise his voice, he’d either guessed or heard her only two inches of wood away.

“Yeah,” she answered.

“Forgot my peanut butter. I just wanted to ask... if you wanted to do a library and grocery store walk with me tomorrow.”

“Sure!” she said, trying to regulate her breathing. “Any time works.”

“If you open the door I’ll give you your book and water bottle. You left them out and it looks like it could rain.”

Rey hid behind the door, opened it a crack, and reached out her clean hand. Her book filled her fingers.

“Water bottle,” Ben said, pushing it through the crack. “You okay in there?”

“Yeah,” Rey lied, wondering if he could tell she was mentally and physically dishevelled. 

She took the water bottle with her right hand, forgetting, and she heard a sharp intake of breath from the other side of the door. 

A large finger trailed down one of hers, playing in her unmistakably-scented drippings.

“God, Rey,” he whispered. “I wish I could come in.” 

It was a lament, not a request. 

He wrapped his hand around hers, and wrapped hers around the bottle, passing it to her. 

Then he was gone.

Rey slid to the floor, her body wound tighter than when she’d started.

XXX

Rey’s phone rang after midnight, waking her in confusion. Planning on ignoring the call, she saw Ben’s name flashing on the screen and caught it on the last ring.

“I’m sorry to wake you,” he said in a gravelly voice, “but I think I need some help.”

“What do you mean, Ben?” Rey asked, sitting up in her bed and glancing at the window facing his house. As usual she’d opened the curtains back up after turning off her light for the night, content to see his hall light and the occasional glimpse of him in the corridor. 

He’d been right about the rain.

The upstairs next door was still dark as she climbed out of bed. The old tights and hoodie she’d fallen asleep in would pass for clothes, and she tied her wild hair up in an elastic.

“I could use some help with some First Aid,” he said simply, but seriously. “Sorry to wake you. Are you able to come help me?”

“Be there in a sec. Your sure you don’t need a doctor?” she asked, taking her steps two at a time down.

“Maybe bring any extra First Aid supplies you have. I’ll pay you back,” he said, hanging up.

Rey mentally speculated, pillaging her bathroom cupboard for him. Slipping her rubber boots over her bare feet, she ran over without her coat or keys, not bothering to lock up.

He met her at the door wearing a bloody T-shirt and the smell of a dozen stale beers.

“Thanks,” he said, sounding tired. “Leave your boots on, there’s glass everywhere.” He held the door open, and escorted her into his brightly lit kitchen. 

His jacket had been stuffed into one side of his double sink, visible pieces of glass catching the light. His broom was leaning against the counter, the dustpan below it glittering, both white plastic tools littered with red fingerprints.

“What happened?” Rey asked, aghast at the sheer number of places Ben appeared to be bleeding. “Some sort of drunken bar fight?”

“Drunk, no. Hux and I don’t need alcohol to act like barbarians. This,” he plucked at a wet spot on his black jeans, “was collateral from tossing each other over tables.”

The phone rang like an old fire alarm, the rotary unit dancing around it’s cubby. Rey reached for the receiver automatically to make it stop.

“No,” Ben said, stretching out a bloody hand to stop her. It was too late.

“Hello?” Rey said.

“Rey?” Finn sounded relieved. “This is Rey, right? Ben made it home? I’ve been calling but-“

“Yeah, Ben’s home,” she said, shrugging at Ben’s unimpressed expression. “But he needs some help, I need to let you go.”

“Can you text me later?”

Finn gave her his personal cell, and she wrote it down on a torn out page of the ancient phone book advertising a long-closed restaurant.

“He thinks you’re pretty,” Ben said flatly.

“He’s not wrong,” Rey teased with a veneer of cockiness she didn’t feel at the moment.

Crossing her arms over her chest, she surveyed her neighbour. He was a mess.

“Where do you want to start?”

“I want to shower this beer off of me, but I keep finding glass everywhere. I’d like an ice pack for my face but I think there’s more glass in my face. And I keep getting blood on everything I touch,” he said, frustrated.

“Well, let's keep the mess in one place,” she decided, opening her first aid kit and finding gloves, tweezers and a wound cleaning solution. She found the bowl he’d been using for glass shards on the kitchen table. There was blood on the seat of one of the chairs.

“Do you have a big chunk of glass in your ass?”

“Leg, I think,” he said with a small snort. “High up. I can’t sit.”

“How’d you get home from downtown?”

“Walked.”

“Of course you did.”

Making him lean down uncomfortably so she could start on the glimmering shards in his face, she wielded her phone’s flash light and the tweezers until his back and her shoulders ached.

Rey made the mistake of looking him in the eyes. They were so close, trained on hers, his mouth inches away. His tongue darted out to swipe at his dry lips, sucking them in slightly like he had to keep them occupied.

“Take off your shirt,” she murmured, stepping away. Her rubber boots squeaked as she shifted her legs against each other. “Let’s see how bad it is.”

He winced, stretching the ruined T-shirt over his head with a soft tinkle of glass hitting the floor. Running bloody fingers through his hair he shook more out into the sink, some pieces lodging into his hand, creating more open wounds.

If his chest was bad his back was worse. Larger fragments of beer bottles and pint glasses stuck out of hard muscles, jagged enough they’d pierced and stuck through his jacket.

“Maybe you should go get your gloves from the workshop,” he recommended, slicing open his palm trying to unstick a green piece from under a pectoral.

“I don’t want them to get bloody,” Rey commented absently, pressing her hand to his burning hip to sharply tug out a knife-shaped piece. “Ben, maybe you should go to the hospital.”

“I’d rather not,” he said dryly. “If it’s too much I can try to do it myself.”

“That’s not what I’m saying,” Rey argued, smacking her palm against his hip hard to stop the rich swell of blood pooling from the new hole there.

Down to his boxers, the kitchen smelling of stale alcohol, rubbing alcohol, blood, and hormones, Rey got him to the point he could go have a shower. He didn’t take long, and she couldn’t imagine the sting of a hundred open wounds under the soap and hot water.

Not bothering too much with the state of the kitchen, she cut and prepared bandages and tape in the living room, sinking into the old couch. She brought out the sanitized tweezers and a fresh bowl, and threw an old towel over a trash bag beside her for him to sit on while she worked.

Thinking about some of the largest pieces of glass in the kitchen, Rey’s fingers got itchy. They’d clean. They’d score. They’d sand. She could use them.

“This okay?” he asked from the entrance to the living room. He wore a burnt orange towel with large brown daises around his waist, his hair everywhere from a hasty dry. Blood wept freely down his body, an especially thick stream down the back of one thigh, curling down his calf.

“Let’s deal with that first,” she pointed out, putting on fresh latex gloves. Kneeling behind him, Rey tried to professionally pretend she wasn’t dying inside as she lifted the back of his towel to expose the long embedded shard.

Holding his breath, Ben felt her give the glass in his upper thigh a testing tug. Bracing his hands on the entrance seam, he rested his forehead against plaster.

“Sorry,” Rey whispered, pushing his ass cheek higher, cupped in her palm, to see better. Her free fingers worked the skin around the glass until it loosened, then she ripped it clean out.

“I think this needs stitches,” she assessed, her breathing funny while she pressed a wad of paper towel hard to the wound.

“It’s fine. Stick a bandage on it and let me sit down, please,” he instructed. Biting her lip, Rey smoothed the sticky medical tape down over the curves of his thighs. 

“I’ll do the rest while I’m down here,” she said, on her knees below him. Pressing bandages and cleaning up blood as she went, Rey worked around until she was face to face with his towel seam.

“There’s more glass here,” she pointed out, touching a hard shiny spot below his naval.

“I have to sit,” he said apologetically, grimacing as he settled into the spot she’d made for him.

Rey tucked herself against his thighs and she cleaned and bandaged his back and shoulders, then chest.

“I’ll get this one out,” she murmured, prodding around his naval, pulling out the last shard with yet more blood.

“Ouch,” she hissed, peeling off her glove and sticking her finger in her mouth. He began to tremble against her while she sucked.

“Oh, that one is still going,” she pointed out low at his belly.

Ben’s hands closed around her wrists as she pressed against his wound again, her finger forgotten.

“Stop,” he whispered. “This is torture.”

Small smears of blood and bruise coloured his face, his hands stained red around the fingernails.

Rey tried to avoid Ben’s eyes, but she could almost feel them as the energy in the room became more electric.

His hand tightened around her wrist, thumbs stroking her palms, pulling her closer.

“Rey,” he hissed. She looked up, met his eyes. They were combusting. 

Ben moved first. 

He pressed his lips to hers, swollen from injury but demanding regardless.

“Lasted as long as I- fuck, but you’re so- god Rey- tell me what you were doing at your door-“ he muttered brokenly between kisses, dragging her into his lap.

Rey welcomed his tongue, his burning hands slipping up under her shirt, the scorching mass of him between her thighs. It all happened so fast. This was a pace previous partners had achieved with her in weeks, not seconds.

“I fingered myself after you read to me,” she gasped, feeling him buck his erection against her at the words. She took his head in her hands, her fingers weaving through the damp locks, while he pushed up her hoodie and mouthed hard at her bare breasts.

Her centre molten atop the rapidly spreading layer of his towel, she could feel they were both soaked already. As she moved on top of him the towel joint fell apart, leaving him naked below her. Smears of Ben’s blood and pre-cum marked her grey tights, the thin fabric straining to keep in her own slippery offerings.

Rey ground down, willing him inside her, as she returned kisses that demanded her attention and tasted slightly of iron. 

His hands were everywhere. The bandages frustrated him as he tangled a hand into her hair, the elastic lost already, and palmed her breasts. Realizing the bulk of him between her thighs was more than halfway to getting her off just like this, Ben slid his hands to her hips.

Encouraging her with words and action between fierce and lust-clumsy kisses, Ben pulled Rey down on top of him harder, thrusting his erection so that it put pressure on her aching clitoris with each furious motion.

A lot of things happened in quick succession.

“Come for me,” he demanded, pressing his cotton-wrapped thumb to her centre as she started making harsh pants. 

Rey gushed slick as he came loud and hard against her, coating each other through her tights as a gloriously intense, tsunami of an orgasm crushed her injured ribs. 

She cried out, pleasure then sharp pain, her expression crumpling with discomfort as it fell into a low keen. Rey’s arms wrapped around her torso, hunching over her chest protectively while she shifted away from his arms.

“Oh my god,” Ben said hoarsely, stricken and pale, his hands falling away. His injuries looked worse against the new pallor. “I’ve hurt you. This hurt you.”

Rey tried to speak but couldn’t catch her breath.

“I’m fine,” she croaked, feeling his body hum with a new tension.

Ben was already lifting her off of him, barely plopping her down on the couch before crossing out of the room.

Listening to him throw up in the kitchen sink, Rey caught her breath and got her bearings. 

She and Ben has crossed the line in a spectacularly ill-advised fashion, and they couldn’t take it back. Rejection and humiliation warred with reason and compassion within her. This wasn’t about the way Ben felt about her, she told herself, this was about the way Ben felt about things inside himself.

A scrape of kitchen chair made her stand and go check on him.

Ben sat naked at his kitchen table, palms pressed to eyes. His shoulders shook every few seconds, but he made no noise.

Rey rinsed out the sink and got him a glass of water.

She sat across from him, sipping her own cup.

“I’m sorry,” she said, swallowing embarrassment. “I knew orgasms still hurt and I wasn’t thinking, I didn’t think how that might trigger-“

“Don’t, please don’t apologize to me,” he snapped.

Rey gave him a fragile smile that he didn’t return. She could feel the frisson of sadness in the little kitchen. They were done for the night, perhaps done for forever.

She shifted, ignoring the slide of semen and her fluids between her thighs. There were smears of his blood all over her shirt and body, and of her blood on his shoulders and neck from her weeping finger.

“Ben, would it be easier for you if I left?” she asked softly, knowing the answer.

“How’s your chest?” he asked anxiously, finally looking at her, then “I’ve hurt your feelings too,” he whispered, examining her face.

“I’ll live,” she said kindly, carefully bringing her tone into a normal-seeming friend tone. “You should go to bed. We’ll just pretend none of this happened.”

“What if it’s not about pretending it didn’t happen. What if we should just keep our distance?”

Rey’s heart broke a little more behind her understanding mask.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he continued quietly.

“But you will if it’s the best way forward,” she finished. He seemed confused by this, but she didn’t give him a chance to clarify. “I guess this is why you don’t fall for your next door neighbour!” she laughed, not seeing his stricken expression. “Goodnight, Ben. Let me know if you still want to walk tomorrow.”

Rey kept her legs moving toward the front door at a deliberate non-run, but once she’d burst out the front door she dropped pretence and bolted.

Five minutes of teenage humping had spoiled everything, she thought angrily, scrubbing tears away with her sleeve.

The lights in Ben’s house didn’t switch off until dawn.

XXX

Adrenaline shooting through her veins, Rey startled awake at the sound of horrified noises outside her house. A woman was letting out desperate, terrifying waves of screams, the pitch rising and volume, her voice growing hoarse within minutes. 

Flying to the window with phone in hand, Rey searched for the woman in the LED glow of the streetlights. The swaying black branches of the leafless trees obscured her vision. 

There, she spotted, beside a car stopped outside the house across the street, one tire up on the sidewalk. A commotion was forming, the stumbling driver desperately trying to calm her. Lights flew on down the street, faces in windows just like hers. 

With a crack of door hitting wood, a distinctive creak of the screen, Ben was on his front lawn already, barefoot in the crispy layer of snow, in just his plain grey boxers. He stood stunned, taking in the scene with his mouth open, hands over ears. Sirens began in the distance.

Rey flew down the steps, snagging the blanket off the back of her couch, stomping into her rubber boots, and tossing on her coat. She ran to Ben, throwing the blanket with difficulty over his immobile shoulders. 

Last week’s cuts were healing, but their emotions were still pretty raw.

His eyes were huge, glazed over.

Rey saw the leash leading out from the front tire of the stopped car, a dark stain spreading. The leash ended on the wrist of the distraught woman, who was shaking with sobs that broke up her screams. The driver sat on the curb, head in hands.

“I think the woman is unhurt, Ben,” Rey said as close as she could to his ear. “It looks like he hit her dog, though.”

“He’s drunk,” Ben growled, shaking her off and stepping toward the driver. Sirens grew louder and then stopped with a bip bip as the marked SUV, lights flashing blue and red across the houses, pulled up to the scene, cutting Ben off. After a moment on their radio, officers emerged, one heading for the woman now alternating heartbroken wails and sobs, the other the man on the curb.

“They’ve got this, Ben. You need to get out of the snow,” Rey said, wrapping her hand around his wrist. He let her lead him to his porch with a few glances over his shoulder, and into his dark living room. There were no curtains on the front window, and flickers of blue and red light swirled across his unadorned wall.

Resting a hand on the wide expanse of his bare back, Rey felt icy moisture, like frozen perspiration that melted on her touch.

Ben collapsed just inside the door, against the base of the soft, elderly couch. Crossing his arms on his knees, he buried his face in his elbows like a child. 

Rey draped her blanket over his potentially-crying form, tucking it up behind his shoulders to look like a poncho. He didn’t acknowledge her as she wandered at loose ends, thinking. The room was cold. Raising the temperature of the house would take too long, but she spotted the fireplace. 

Throwing in a few logs and some kindling, she clicked away with the bbq lighter until it was satisfactorily aflame. Heat washed out into the little room as well as a little smoke and ash.

Deciding to fully invade his privacy, she filled his electric kettle with water in the dark kitchen, procured a pair of warm-looking moccasins from the back door, and a small towel and an extra blanket from the linen closet. While the tea steeped, she cautiously approached Ben.

Rey knelt before him with the moccasins and a hand towel, speaking gently.

“Ben, I need you to dry off your feet and put these to warm them up. You were standing barefoot in the snow.”

He didn’t move.

“I can do it for you. Ben, I’m going to touch your feet to take care of them. Please tell me if you don’t want that.”

Nothing.

Feeling awkward but determined, Rey lifted up the blanket she’d draped on him to reveal a foot. She carefully wiped the snow off, watching it melt into the area rug, and lifted the enormous limb just enough to ensconce it in the deer skin slippers. The second foot he lifted for her, comprehension dawning through actions where words had failed.

“Okay,” Rey said, holding up the extra blanket, “lean forward and I’ll wrap it around your back. Looks like your cuts are healing up nicely.” Cooperating, Ben let her bundle him up. She caught him staring at her when she came back with a cup of tea.

“I’ll put this next you, on the end table. It’s hot.”

“Would you like me to go?” she asked, concerned to leave him alone and concerned to stay.

“No.”

She thought a moment.

“Where’s your book?”

“Kitchen table.”

Finding the library copy of some generic sci-fi where he instructed, Rey poured herself a cup of tea and settled onto the couch behind him.

It took two hours, but she read him back to sleep. Dawn was breaking when she put her head down on the couch arm and succumbed herself. She could see in the pale light his giant form filling the floor in front of the fire, wrapped in blankets like a man-burrito. His head was on a couch cushion, his expression relaxed to the sound of her voice. 

She should go home but she couldn’t move. Her eyes shut, listening to him breathe. They’d barely spoken since she was last here, and she missed him.

Rey woke up in Ben’s arms, cold air on her face and bare feet.

“You can’t be here,” he said tersely, when he noticed she was awake. “I’m taking you home. I’ll drop off your boots.”

A buzz came from his jacket pocket.

“It’s Finn. He texted you last night, asked you on a date.”

“I know,” Rey said hoarsely, resting her cheek sleepily on his shoulder. “Why is it buzzing now?”

“I responded.”

“You did what,” Rey said flatly, eyes flying open.

“He’ll pick you up next Friday at 7pm.”

XXX

“Rey?” Ben’s voice broke the quiet of her backyard. She saw the top of his shaggy black hair over the gate, waiting to be invited in.

“Finally gracing me with your presence? You can always come right in,” she reminded him yet again. He opened the latch, pushing a sweep of frozen leaves with the swinging arc of the gate.

“Not today,” he answered bleakly. Rey let the workshop padlock fall into her palm, her eyes finding his face. Pale, smelling of rye and bitterness, Ben gave her a wide berth.

“I just came to ask a favour,” he mumbled.

“Finn’s on his way, he’ll be here any minute. Mind if we move this to the front?”

Completing the lock, Rey carefully found the driest places to step in her date boots. An overnight snow followed by a mild day had made a mess of the grass. The setting sun would crisp up the damp spots overnight, leaving her backyard sounding like glass in the morning.

“Sure,” he said flatly, watching her struggle. “You look nice.”

As little as Rey wanted to go on a proper date with anyone, she had no intention of letting Finn down. She liked the man, and this was likely the beginning of some form of lasting something, she hoped.

She sloshed into a puddle and nearly fell.

“Here,” Ben sighed, crossing the yard with a few long steps and sweeping her up in his arms. Rey squealed in indignation, her fingers burying painfully into his shoulders. 

“You like doing that,” she accused.

Calming at once, Rey sniffed his mouth suspiciously. Ben turned his face from her, black hair falling into her eyes. Not put off, Rey reached up and pushed the strands away, silent pleasure at the slide of them between her fingers secondary to concern.

“What have you done, Ben?” she asked, not entirely without judgement. He closed the gate behind them, and ducked below a bare forsythia.

“A drink won’t kill me.”

“You don’t smell like ‘a’ drink, you smell like a bottle.”

“Bottle isn’t empty,” he dismissed. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t sound fine. What’s going on? The whole time I’ve know you-“

“Which is less than three months,” he interrupted bitterly, climbing her porch stairs. “Only took three months and a pretty girl to undo me, to expose my weakness.”

He helped Rey slide down, but as her boots hit the decking his arms stayed around her. She let him step her back into the vinyl siding, breathing heavily, long splayed hands against the plastic either side of her. His eyes were depthless space, black and borderless, as he leaned down slowly, so slowly, and pressed his cheek to hers.

“Do me a favour,” he breathed into her throat, rye and heat under her jaw. Rey wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers returning to his hair, keeping him in place. “When you realize Finn is everything you need, everything you deserve-“ his voice caught, a hitch in his chest Rey could feel, and he ground through the rest, “please go to his place tonight, not here. Don’t make me see his car in your driveway tonight, tomorrow morning. Give me more time to adjust to that, I’m not ready.”

“You made me say yes to this,” Rey hissed, pulling sharply until he winced. “You know it’s not what I want.” Her body was crackling with anger and lust, pressing wantonly against his thigh for relief. He shifted it into a better position for her, sliding a hand to the arch of her back to invite her closer, to use him.

Rey bit him.

Sinking her teeth into the alcohol-sweat below his ear, she took out her frustration on his skin. Sucking it between her lips, breaking blood vessels with the pulsing drag of her teeth, she drank in his pained gasps. It helped soothe the heartbreak of being pushed away towards Finn, leaving her mark on him. A fresh wave of anger spread through her, and she bit again, lower towards his shoulder.

Ben ripped her hands from his hair, and slapped them up against the wall over her head.

“That hurt,” he snarled, eyes defiant as his mouth crashed down on hers. Rey let him kiss her, let him share the faint taste of his blood that swirled around her tongue.

“So did being passed off to one of your buddies because you’re too scared to touch me,” she accused breathlessly, trying not to get lost in the way his soft lips were full enough to form around hers.

“I’m doing alright now, aren’t I?” he said angrily, letting one hand fall down to her thigh. He hooked it over his hip, her skirt sliding up to her waist.

“You’re drunk,” she hissed. “Do this sober.” Rey shoved him away, and he backed off, leaning on the rail. A scarlet bruise was forming down one side of his throat above the heavy plaid flannel collar, eyes shadowed, chest rising and falling. “I’m serious, Ben. You can do anything you want to me sober, like literally any filthy thing you can think of, but don’t you fucking dare touch me again drunk.”

“Just-“ he struggled to catch his breath, expression closing in, “just don’t bring Finn here tonight. Please. Go to his place. He’s everything- I can’t. Mercy, Rey,” he pleaded. “Just, show me some mercy, even if you’re angry.”

He fled the porch, Rey quickly scanning the street for Finn or his car or anyone who could have seen the brief sexual argument they’d just had in public. No one. Rey watched Ben fly up his own steps, cross his porch in one bound, and slam the door shut behind him.

This wasn’t specifically the drama she’d feared when getting a new neighbour, but he sure was bloody dramatic.

Taking one shuddering breath of cold air, Rey fixed her skirt, smoothed down her coat and scarf. Finn pulled up and got out, not looking at her as he took the stairs in crisp steps.

“All set?” he asked kindly, finally gracing her with a warm smile. Rey had the feeling he was carefully examining her face, but she passed him and headed for the passenger side of his car.

“Yeah, let’s go,” she answered brightly, accepting a lovely pale pink rose wrapped in cellophane and tied with a smooth polyester ribbon. “Dinner?”

It didn’t occur to Rey until they were pulling back into the driveway late that night that Finn hadn’t once made a seriously romantic or sexual overture other than the flower. There’d been little hand touches, kind gestures, but no question, Rey was going home alone. 

The handsome man had treated her like a cherished sister, and it was welcome but perplexing. Maybe she’d misread the invitation right from the start.

“Can I walk you to the door?” Finn asked, his seatbelt still fastened. 

“Yeah,” she agreed, uncertain if she’d let him kiss her goodnight if he tried.

He offered his elbow up the slippery walkway, stopping at the bottom stair when she reached the rail but allowing her to use his hand as far as he could reach to support her as she climbed.

“I’d like to spend more time with you, Rey,” he said sincerely. “I think we could be good friends.”

Something warm spread through her chest, reassurance mingled with confusion.

“I’d like that,” she agreed softly. Reaching the top stair, she saw a dark mass on her swing. “Ben? Ben are you okay?”

Finn followed her up now, frowning. He switched the flashlight on his phone, shining it in his friend’s face.

“Ben,” he said loudly. The unconscious man didn’t stir. He was huddled up in the freezing weather, an empty bottle tucked into his winter coat. Dragging a finger down Ben’s mouth with the phone nearly touching it, Finn switched the light off and dropped it back in the pocket of his black wool overcoat.

“His lips are blue, we have to get him inside.” Finn slid his arms under Ben’s shoulders, and tried to hoist. “Unlock your door and clear a path. I hope your couch isn’t far, this bastard is heavy.”

Rey listened, hitting lights and moving shoes out of the way so Finn could drag Ben off the porch and into the warm little living room. Rey unlaced his boots and pulled them off before she placed his feet on the couch arm.

“Blankets,” Finn said, heading to the kitchen. She heard the facet run, and he came back with a coffee mug of warm water from the tap and a bucket.

Rey looked down at her intoxicated popsicle of a neighbour in the recovery position, wrapped in every spare blanket she had, her soft cream toque on his burnt red ears.

Finn knelt down beside him and handed the cup to Rey.

“I’ll hold his head up. Let’s see if we can wake him enough to drink a little.”

Ben’s head fell to the side, exposing the fully risen mottled bruise along his throat. It was every shade of red and purple, ringed with yellow, and dotted with black.

“You really did a number on him,” Finn mused with a chuckle, gently raising Ben’s head back up.

“I- wh-“ Rey sputtered, nearly dropping her cup.

“I drove around the block a few times,” he admitted. “You need to know that handling things badly is the only way Ben knows how to handle things. Is this-“ he nodded to the bottle, “about tonight?”

“Probably,” she said softly. “I think I broke him.”

“Nah,” Finn said, his tone light but his eyes serious. “You didn’t break him. You just reminded him he’s alive, for better or worse. I’ve known this asshole a long time, and the cracks were there before you.”

“Should we call for an ambulance?”

Ben’s body gave a jolt, a terrible gagging sound stuck in his throat. Rolling him quickly up to clear his airways further, Finn held Ben steady as he filled the bucket Rey held.

“Don’t tell my Mom I’ve been drinking,” Ben pleaded weakly between bouts. Finn rubbed his back.

“He’ll live if he’s made it to the begging,” Finn stated dryly over the sound of Ben’s vomit. “This isn’t new. I don’t think he’s talked to his parents since The Incident. He’s too scared to face his mother, though god knows he needs to because she’s all he talked about when he drank. And Rey, when he’s back to himself?”

“Yeah?”

“Give him absolute hell for putting you through this.”

“I probably won’t,” she admitted, replacing Finn’s hand on Ben’s back when he went to grab the box of tissues. “This easily could have been me if I hadn’t been sponsored into a super strict no-substance-use-allowed arts program straight out of juvie.”

Finn’s eyebrows disappeared into his hairline but his voice was light.

“Well that didn’t come up over dinner. What did you do?”

“Whatever I was told to do by my unofficial foster parents,” Rey said, grimacing as Ben choked a little. She let her hand trail down his back, rubbing reassuring circles. “They dabbled in just about everything: drugs, theft, blackmail. When they started to take serious looks at my body, I turned myself in. First time the government had heard of me.”

“You weren’t in the system?”

“Nah, they said they found me in a cargo shipping container and ‘took me in’ like a Dickensian orphan. If I’d known I’d get my own bed, three meals a day, medical care, and proper schooling in prison, I’d have gone sooner.”

“You’d never been to school?”

“Got my GED a couple years ago,” Rey dismissed. “Skills training came first. I knew how to read and write already.”

“So what do you want to do?”

“This,” she stated firmly, squeezing Ben’s shuddering shoulder. “I’ve got a new name, a small business, reliable clients, saved every scrap for a little home of my own that no one can take away from me.”

“And then this train wreck moves in next door and upsets your orderly little life?” Finn teased, helping Ben lean back into the couch.

“Something like that,” she said softly. “I didn’t even know what was missing until it showed up on my doorstep.” Finn didn’t need to be a detective to spot the concerned affection in her eyes as she examined Ben’s pale sweaty face. His eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling.

“I feel terrible.”

Eventually Finn sent Rey up to bed, stripping off his stylish sweater and making himself a pot of tea. From her bed she could hear Ben’s voice, low and rumbling, and Finn’s, clear and hushed but audible.

“You couldn’t just admit you liked her?”

A Ben rumble.

“Yeah, well watching the two of you make out right before our date was a pretty clear sign to me even if it wasn’t to you. Next time stay the hell away from a girl’s phone.”

Rumble rumble.

“That’s not a realistic plan. You live literally next door.”

Ben’s frustrated growl was easy to make out.

“Correct, but I have a feeling she’ll forgive you anyway.”

Quiet rumbles.

“Judging by Hickeyliath on your neck there, I don’t think you need to worry about that.”

Rumble.

“Alright, I’ll take it, but you have start going to meetings again to get a new one even if you do hate Poe’s coffee. Counselling too, you can’t leave it like this with Rey. I can pick you up.” Finn’s voice softened. “It happens, man, it happens.”

Rey pulled the comforter up under her chin, but it took a long time to fall asleep.

In the morning both men were gone. She heard the door and Finn’s car leave her driveway, and crept down. A neat stack of folded blankets sat where Ben had lain. The bucket smelled of chemical cleaner and was back in the bathroom, the mug washed and on the drain board.

The recycling bin on the landing to the basement stairs caught her eye.

“Aw come on,” she said out loud to herself, spotting the empty containers.

Her front door creaked open. Ben filled the door frame, deer in headlight eyes wide at her hoodie, underpants, and wool socks. She stood in her kitchen, and put her hands on her hips.

“Is that for me?”

A canvas grocery bag, forgotten in his hand, held a box of cereal and a carton of her milk.

“I was hoping to replace them before you woke.“ He set them down on the floor, and turned to leave.

“Ben,” she called. He kept going, nearly closing the door behind him. “Are we going to talk about the fact we’re attracted to each other?”

Hungover, ashamed, and crabby, Ben swung around.

“What do you want,” she asked firmly, her hands on her hips. “Not what do you think you can handle or deserve or think I want or need. What do you, Ben Solo, want out of this.”

“I want you, Rey,” he said, annoyed. “I should think that was obvious.”

“Want me how? In what way.”

“In every way.” His voice was starting to grow louder.

“But you are having trouble with the physical part, so you’re giving up on all the rest?” she demanded.

“I’m not.”

“You are!” she shouted. “You pushed me away the moment the sex got weird, our whole friendship and whatever more it’s turning into went straight out to the curb!”

“I don’t think what’s going on here is trash,” he defended heavily, taking a step back towards her.

“Are we still friends?” she asked aggressively, pointing at him.

“Of course.” His head was pounding, faintly rye-flavoured bile rising.

“Are you going to consider being my partner?”

“I think it’s a little late for considering,” he said hotly. “You’re goddamn stuck with me.”

“Then there had better be no more repeats of last night in any capacity. Are you going to throw up?” she asked threateningly, watching his face grow pale.

“Yes,” he said, slamming the door behind him and stomping out onto the porch. Emptying half a box of corn flakes into Rey’s shrubs, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“I just argued my way to a girlfriend,” he told a passing squirrel.


	4. December

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags for this chapter:  
\- brief on page sexual harassment

December

  
  


Rey was less than impressed when Mitaka unbuckled his seatbelt and followed her out of the car. 

She stomped in place, thanking him yet again for his timely offer of a ride home from the Christmas Night Market. The roads were getting bad, and it would have been a messy bus ride, but she’d been getting weird vibes and couldn’t wait to be away from him. 

Having him pull into Ben’s driveway instead of hers had been a comfort tactic, not wanting him to know where she actually lived. It was backfiring spectacularly now.

“Have a goodnight! Safe drive!” she called loudly. Mitaka came around the car anyway and smiled.

“Mind returning the favour? I could really use the bathroom.”

He was too close to sneakily call Ben. Rey chewed her wind-dried lip. This was one of those moments where she didn’t know if he was a friend who needed a bathroom, or a potential assailant looking for access to her home.

“Sorry, my bathroom’s not the cleanest,” she said cheerfully. “But there’s a Tim’s around that corner, by the grocery store,” she directed, “and I’m told they have standards.”

“I’m not scared of a bit of soap scum,” he laughed, throwing an arm around her shoulders. Rey tried to slip out of his grip but her boots were old and she had no traction.

“My dog’s not friendly,” she warned, being half-dragged up Ben’s dark porch steps. The overhead light snapped on. 

Rey knew Ben didn’t have a motion sensor. 

“You should go,” she warned, slipping on an icy spot.

Mitaka shrugged, taking advantage of her poor footing to pull her close to him.

“Mitaka stop, I don’t want-“

“Think I’d drive you home without getting even a little thank you kiss just because you have a dog?”

“Woof,” came a low, dangerous voice out the darkness of the house, startling Mitaka into dropping Rey. Ben caught and steadied her, then stepped between them. They hadn’t heard the front door open over their argument. He was in just his boxers, his physique on full display alongside the ghosts of her angry porch love bites.

“Babe, who’s this,” he asked pleasantly, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her back into his chest. He rested his chin on the top of her head, engulfing her from behind. It was warm, reassuring.

“A friend who drove me home from work tonight,” she explained, “and then decided I owe him for the drive.”

“Thanks for bringing her back home safely,” Ben said smoothly. “Baby, why don’t you go in and warm up while your friend and I settle up. I’ve got a pot of tea on.”

Rey hesitated, though he’d released her.

“Rey,” Mitaka cringed, backing down the steps, slipping. “Rey you never mentioned a boyfr- Rey!”

“Go on in,” Ben instructed, his voice firm in a way that reminded her he was a police officer not long ago.

It was deadly quiet as she stepped into Ben’s house, through the dark living room into the bright kitchen. Ben had closed the door behind her so she couldn’t hear their conversation. 

He hadn’t lied about the tea during his theatrical performance. She poured a cup and threw her coat on the counter. There was a huge package of toilet paper in the corner with her name written across an old envelope, stuck to the top. 

Sitting in a chair Ben must have just vacated, she picked up a half-eaten piece of his strawberry jam toast and took a big bite. 

Things hadn’t been settled, really, since their argument when they’d potentially agreed to be a couple.

Rey picked up his second piece of toast, wondering how they’d make a mess of this interaction like they had the last time she’d been here. She could feel the weight of his perfect ass cheek in her palm, remember with absolute clarity the sound and feel of him finishing beneath her. The tights were still stained, she could only wear them to bed.

Ben came in a few minutes later, snow in his rumpled hair. He took in Rey eating his midnight snack, drinking his tea, leaning stiffly in the chair.

“First, no matter how far our relationship gets, I don’t care if we’ve been married fifty years, that’s the last time you call me baby or babe. It’s gross. Literally any other endearment is acceptable. Also, is he alive?” she asked half-joking.

“He’s capable of driving,” Ben confirmed seriously, “I watched him drive away.”

“I’m sorry to bring this to your home-“

“No, you deserve to feel safe. It was smart bringing him here. He won’t be back. Do you have to see him again?”

“He’s the assistant manager at the night market venue hall. I had enough extra pieces that I bought a table this year. I sold out tonight, so I won’t go back tomorrow.”

He popped two more slices of bread in the toaster and then sat across from her.

“Are you okay?”

“We seem to do this a lot,” she said after a pause. “This kitchen at night. We should make some better memories here,” she said flippantly.

“Want to come over for dinner on Christmas Eve?” he asked. It was hard to tell who was more surprised by the question.

“You do main and dessert, I’ll do sides and salad,” she offered seriously, like they were discussing a business deal.

“Done,” he agreed.

“Done,” she nodded, a storm starting in her heart as she watched his steady dark eyes examine her face.

“If you feel like it, you can stay the night, that night,” he offered quietly.

“Not tonight?”

He shook his head regretfully.

“Wait for Santa together?”

“Something like that. I’ve been doing well with my counselling, but can’t promise more than... company. I thought it might be nice, though. Read in front of the fire until we pass out. I’ll make you a nest of blankets and cocoa.”

“It sounds heavenly,” she said truthfully. “Do you have plans Christmas Day?”

“No, but I assumed you might.”

“Normally,” she shrugged. “I usually go to my boss-slash-friend’s, but she’ll be flying in that morning after a month’s holiday in Portugal and won’t be looking for company. She said she might stop by for a drink depending on when their flight gets in, and how they’re feeling, but it’ll likely be later in the day.”

“Are you still working on that special piece for her?”

Rey nodded, inelegantly slurping the hot tea like she would at home.

“It’ll be done before Christmas, so she can pick it up.”

Rey slurped again, missing Ben’s indulgent little smile.

“Want to come eat leftovers at mine Christmas Day?”

“I’d like that,” Ben said. He smiled again, a shy, little used expression that was growing more frequent. “Crisis usually brings you here, I don’t know your place that well.”

Rey cleared her throat.

“I’m sorry I accused you of being too scared to touch me. That was unkind.”

“It was true,” he murmured.

“It was unkind,” she pressed, “and it was selfish for me to guilt you into doing something you weren’t ready to do.”

“I’m going to be ready someday,” Ben said softly, his eyes aglow. “Just you wait.”

“Say the word, and I’ll be here,” Rey half-whispered, soaking in his gaze. She smirked suddenly. “Is now a good time to tell you sober that I’m also open to the idea of all manner of adventures in the bedroom? I can’t think of a single thing I wouldn’t do with you.”

Ben blew out a little hoo of a breath, and she suspected his boxers were suffering under the table as he considered possibilities.

Standing, ready to leave before her imagination made her beg to stay, she rested a hand on his shoulder.

“I’d offer to take care of your dilemma down there but I have a feeling you’d say no.”

“Rey,” he warned.

“I still remember the feel of you finishing against me,” she teased. “You should have seen the state of my tights that night, covered in your-“

“Rey, go home,” he said, exasperated, “or I’m uninviting you for Christmas.”

“What’s with the toilet paper?”

He looked over at the mountainous packet and shrugged.

“Your brand was on sale, but I know you have trouble carrying the big packs when the sidewalks are icy. Was going to drop it off tomorrow.”

It was a strangely appropriate romantic gesture for them.

“Kiss me goodnight at the door?”

He eyed her speculatively, nodding.

Rey raised her eyebrows, surprised to be caught by her joking offer.

At the open door, cold air flooding into the dark living room, Ben bent down over her, hesitating.

“You don’t have to,” she whispered, lost in the black of his eyes but afraid to touch him.

“I want to,” he said softly, not closing his eyes as he gently pressed his lips high on hers once. Rey was barely breathing, holding absolutely still like she was trying not to scare a bird. Ben looked faintly amused at her focus, her balled fists at her side as she tried to behave.

His mouth came down again, gently pressing hers, scarcely moving but soft. Tasting her, he let his hand trace her cheek, drawing her closer. Testing his limits, he parted his lips, slipping the tip of his tongue into her mouth.

A helpless little sound like whimper came from Rey’s chest, and he pulled back.

“You should go,” he said, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

Rey’s house felt large and vacant that night, alone, knowing the belonging she sought was beside her. There were times when he was reading aloud to her, lost in the writing, when he’d tuck his hair behind his ears, grinning like the teenager he once must have been. Tonight, though, he was too old for his years, heart too worn through for his young body. 

Rey felt like an intruder to his recovery process, human derailment.

In her bed in the quiet darkness, she took a deep breath.

“Let him make his own choices. Just behave and give him space.”

XXX

“What’s on your Christmas list?” he asked her one evening, bundled up close in their winter coats on the swing. She folded her book over a gloved finger to mark her spot.

“Nothing,” she admitted. “Every year my Christmas is work, some extra junk food, and failing to put up my own lights.”

“You have lights?”

“They’re in the garage,” she shrugged. “They we’re here when I moved in but I don’t own a ladder. What’s on your Christmas list?”

He shrugged.

“If you’re thinking you need to get me a present, don’t,” she said kindly. “I know we’re both on tight budgets, so celebrating together should be more than enough, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, his voice easier, “as long as it’s okay with you.”

“What’s the dress code for tomorrow?”

“I’ll be wearing a variation of this,” he said like it was a question.

Rey couldn’t see what he wore under his heavy winter kit, but she could guess.

“When would you like me over?”

“After lunch, before dinner? God, Rey, I don’t know. Come over when you feel like it? I’m bad at this sort of thing.”

“Is this a date?”

He sputtered, and Rey laughed, and they went back to their books, pink in the cheeks.

XXX

Rey had the epiphany halfway through Christmas Eve dinner that the evening was not so much a date as a window into their prospective married life.

They’d navigated the little kitchen together with ease and humour, mixing up packets of gravy and boxes of mashed potatoes and stuffing to go along with the sage-camouflaged grocery store chicken. Ben had bought paper serviettes with little poinsettias instead of his normal plain paper towels, and laid them on the table while Rey microwaved the frozen peas and sliced the last pickle in the jar in half.

When the feast had been dished from pots onto plates patterned with pistachio and orange coloured swirls, and they’d brought them to the table with their cans of store brand ginger ale, they couldn’t have been more proud. 

Ben lit an emergency kit candle he’d wedged into a shot glass.

“Merry Christmas,” he said shyly, meeting her eyes for only a moment over the flame before spearing four pieces of chicken at once.

“Merry Christmas, Ben,” she replied, fork still on the table as she watched him. His hair was getting long. She should ask him if he’d like a trim sometime or if he wanted to keep growing it.

“So what does work life look like for you at the start of the year?” he asked, sneaking his half of the pickle onto her plate with failed stealth. “Do you start working on ornaments for next Christmas right away?”

He listened intently while Rey explained the cycle of her year. Next would be other major holidays in smaller batches, Valentine’s and Easter, then summer butterflies and birds, flowers, a scattering of commissions and repairs, evergreen hangers for new babies, memorials, or weddings.

Ben would be there for all that, she realized. Mixing her peas, potatoes, and gravy into a slurry, and scooping it into her mouth, she eyed Ben again.

Being here, together, felt as natural as breathing, and somehow he was becoming more handsome the longer she knew him. Flushing, she sipped her ginger ale and looked away.

They had dessert in the living room in front of the fire, a bakery box of soft honey oat cakes, a crate of clementines, and tea. True to his word, Ben had stacked blankets and cushions for her to nest in while she read.

Within the hour the tension in the room was incredible. Or perhaps the tension in Rey was incredible. She side-eyed Ben, sprawled huge beside her. His face was partially hidden by his book, the firelight reflecting off the cover. Achieving a focus she hadn’t, pages were turned at regular intervals.

Sneaking glances had been a bad idea. He was a meal of a body, legs forever, denim-hugged ass, and a plaid button-down straining at the shoulder seams. From this close distance she could touch his hair if she’d been welcome.

Rey was struggling. She squirmed to get comfortable, trying to ignore the throbbing need in her lower torso. If they stayed this close together he was going to be able to smell her arousal.

“I’m going to shovel before it gets too deep,” he said suddenly, getting up. 

Maybe he’d already noticed. 

He threw on his heavy boots and a pair of mittens and fled out into the storm without a coat.

Alone, Rey moaned loudly. She sat up, seeing the shape of him through the front window. She’d have to be fast. Annoyed at her own recklessness, Rey plunged her hand down her pants.

“Just get it done,” she whispered to herself, flopping on her back into the nest.

When he came in, sweaty from exertion, she was done and washed. Coming out of the kitchen, she handed him a glass of cold water. He let his fingers linger on hers only a heartbeat.

Rey realized her mistake. Instead of smelling of sex herself, now the whole room had taken on a little bit of the scent.

“Did you…” he trailed off, brow furrowed.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “It’ll improve the likelihood that I’ll behave myself.”

“Okay,” he said simply, shaking snow out of his hair. “Whatever you need. Want some hot chocolate and popcorn?”

The fire, the blankets, the hot drinks, the snow outside, the pine needles, the clementine peels all blended into an intoxicating somnolent. Rey‘s eyes drifted shut over and over as she read the same page of her book. Ben had moved to the kitchen, and the comfortable clunking of dishes in the sink put a stop to the unwelcome idea of dragging herself back to her house.

“Rey,” Ben said from the kitchen. His voice was clear, steady, gentle enough to blend into the atmosphere. She heard the soft squeak of the cloth on the marshmallow-coated mugs.

“Mm-hm,” Rey sighed, contentment warming her bones.

“I want to kiss you.”

“Please do,” she murmured, smiling into her elbow-pillow without opening her eyes.

Ben slid back into the room, tea towel thrown over his shoulder. He stopped.

“Another time,” he assessed gently. His disappointment was tempered by her sweet slack face. “You’re asleep.”

But Rey couldn’t hear him. She was snoring.

She awoke alone in a blue snow-lit room, cold-aired and warm-bedded. Nothing hung on the walls, and the dresser top was bare. The nightstand beside her held her phone, a stack of paperbacks, and her tea mug. A quick inspection showed it had been washed and filled with fresh water. 

She’d never been so thoroughly and lovingly tucked in her life.

Out the window she caught a glimpse of her own house, and smiled. She scrambled to the window and leaned onto the sill, ignoring the chill of her nose pressed to the glass.

Her Christmas lights were up and working, a string of cheery twinkling rainbow bulbs. Enormous foot prints and ladder holes were being filled by fresh snowfall, likely invisible by morning.

Sneaking down the stairs, wrapped in his entire grey-on-grey striped comforter, she found Ben curled in an ancient sleeping bag in front of the banked fire. 

He’d never have fit on the couch.

A book was askew beside him, his finger between two pages like he’d had just enough consciousness left to mark his spot. Feeling merciful, she slipped a folded facial tissue inside, and put the book on the table.

Rey let her cocooned self fall gracelessly to the floor beside him. In the dim light of the embers she scooted closer to him until they were nose to nose, her head pillowed on his outstretched arm. In the calm of his presence she felt like she should have been sleepy, but it had passed, like after a satisfying nap.

He shifted, his other enormous hand falling onto her back, tucking her close into his body. The smell of him, warm and clean, drew her nose first into the skin of his jaw.

“Ben,” she whispered, “Ben, wake up and kiss me.”

“‘Kay,” he murmured, cracking an eye, drawing back a bit. His expression shifted through confusion, excitement, and then assessment. Painfully alert now, his eyes examined hers.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Is that what you want too?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, running his fingers up her jaw to cup her cheek. She leaned in and slowly pressed her lips to his. It was a cautious kiss. He’d need gentle handling, extensive communication, and reassurance, oh so much reassurance. 

Rey was prepared for it all, one part compassion and one part lust. Whatever kind of lover he’d been before his trauma didn’t matter, this was his new reality, and he was worth the extra time and effort.

“Kiss me now,” she said, tapping a finger to her chin. “Any way you want, as long as you want.”

Tentatively, he parted his lips and brushed his mouth over hers, like he was breathing her in.

“Good,” she whispered. “I like it. Kiss me more.”

This time he let himself relax his mouth into hers, the slow sweep of her tongue eliciting his low groans.

Pulling back when she wanted to go on, Rey remembered the go-slow plan she’d made if she ever got another chance in this man’s arms.

“Let me rub your back,” she demanded, slithering her hands in to grip the edges of his shirt. “Can I take this off?”

“Yeah,” he whispered, pushing down the sleeping bag and helping her take it off. 

Rey patted his bum, enjoying the way her hand bounced back off the firm muscles.

“Can I sit here?”

“Mm-hm,” he mumbled, resting his head on to his arms, letting his shoulders slump.

Rey hopped onto his backside, letting her thighs fall on either side of his hips. She didn’t have any lotion or oil, but that didn’t stop her from liberally feeling up Ben’s back in the name of a massage. He moaned every now and then while she swept her hands across broad planes, let her fingertips dance into ropes of tension around his shoulder blades. She rocked her hips against him, getting breathy as she talked him through her motions.

“Touch yourself again, Rey,” he murmured into his arms. “I can hear you need to.”

Not waiting to be asked twice, Rey slipped her fingers in quickly. Ben blew out a breath to the wet noises emerging as she danced around her tormented clitoris, sweeping slick to coat it. 

“God this feels good, Ben,” she moaned, squeezing a breast with her free hand. “I love the feel of you between my legs. I think of you exactly like this all the time, but having you actually here, under me, I’m already so close.”

“Can I turn over and watch you?” he asked, pushing himself up a little to relieve pressure on his squashed erection.

“God, yes,” she gasped, squeezing his ass before it left her immediate view. Ben flipped over, Rey perched on his lower abdomen, and he nearly died. Her head was thrown back, her back arched, her tights pulled down enough to show she was three-fingers into her task. Her shirt was pulled up over one breast, the cup tucked under to expose her taut nipple.

“Fuck,” he whispered reverently, grazing her breast with his thumb. “What do you need, Rey?”

“Touch me,” she demanded. “Talk to me. Tell me you want me.”

“I‘ve masterbated more since moving here than my entire teen years,” he admitted, cupping a hand gently around her ribs so that his fingertips brushed back and forth against her nipple. The other he tangled gently in her hair. “I want you so badly I thought about moving away.”

Rey ground down against his abdomen, forcing her fingers in deeper. She shuddered to a halt, fingernails scraping down his chest and she seized for a furious orgasm. 

It was painless. She’d made sure with a great deal of trial that her injury was healed enough to try to seduce Ben with more success than last time.

“That was beautiful,” he said, bringing his face up to hers for a comfortable kiss. She sat in his lap, his fingers running over the exposed skin of her torso and back. Taking her hand gently from her underwear, he met her eyes, and without breaking eye contact, put them in his mouth.

“I’d offer to return the favour, to rub your back, but you’d have to put up with this poking you,” he mumbled around finger sucks, shifting to emphasize his swollen cock.

“Do it,” Rey instructed, letting her fingers slide out of his mouth with an obscene wet pop. She peeled off her shirt and made quick work of her bra, rolling off him to lie face down in their nest of blankets.

“I’ll squish you,” he warned, settling a thick thigh on either side of hers, his penis falling heavily between the cheeks of her arse even through his pj pants. Rey squirmed against the intrusion, welcoming it against her body. 

“You won’t,” she assured him, anxious for the feel of his hands on her naked back. Instinct was telling her to cut to the chase, fuck him now, but reason told her to rush nothing, not to cut corners.

Arguably noisier than Ben, Rey responded to each touch of his fingers.

“I’ll have to do this every day,” he chuckled, leaning forward to plant a kiss on the back of her neck while he stroked the groove of her spine down to where her body cupped his.

“You can move in tomorrow,” she moaned. “Bring your hands.”

“You seem comfortable here,” he assessed, running his hands down her sides to skim her breasts.

“Be hard to move my workshop.”

“Rent the house out minus the workshop, you can commute thirty seconds,” he countered, rocking his hips deliberately against hers.

“I’ll think about it,” she said sincerely with whatever rational thought she could muster. “I heard traffic around the hedge is murder at rush hour.”

“May I take off your pants and giving you a convincing oration on the matter?”

“Yes, but no more terrible puns,” she gasped, working down the band of her sopping tights at a furious pace. The cool air hit her exposed nethers only a heartbeat before Ben lifted her hips high and sank his tongue straight into her.

Taking a long, savouring swipe with his tongue tip, Ben reached under Rey to massage her breasts.

“Yes, God yes, Ben. That feels incredible, keep going.”

Always yes, never please, Rey kept Ben working until his trembling arm muscles gave out. With Ben deep inside of her, messy spurts of semen already leaking back out after an exhausting, slow round of intercourse, Rey felt triumphant.

“You did so well,” she whispered into his pink ears. “That was so good, love. We can do that anytime you feel like.”

Even hardwood was comfortable in a post-coital haze, Rey mused. Ben’s head was pillowed on her chest, his breathing steady while she dragged her fingers through his dark tangles.

“I can hear it,” her lover murmured. “Trapped in here,” he stroked where her throat met her lungs. “The howl.”

“The howl?”

“Mm-hm. Quiet people like you, with eyes like yours, reflexes like yours have it. Every time you swallowed down tears and swallowed down anger and hurt and disappointment and loneliness, every time you wanted to scream but you it swallowed down down down it never truly went away, did it. It stayed here.” 

He tapped the spot gently. 

“A swirling howl of grief and rage that lives in the back of your throat, choking you, and could escape if maybe you just weren’t so tired. It’s lived there so long you’ve become used to it, until you swallow down something new that feeds it, and the howl grows, a wailing, ringing in your ears all the time that only you can hear.”

“Ben,” she breathed, her fingers going limp in his hair.

“It’s alright,” Ben said simply, almost reassuringly as his words began to slur with sleep. Capturing her small, calloused fingers in his, he pressed the tips to his clavicle. “I have it too. Can’t you hear it?”

“I can’t-“

“Hm,” he mused, eyes shut, “I wonder if it’s because it’s so much quieter when you’re close. Your heartbeat, it’s so calming.”

He fell asleep, leaving Rey with her thoughts. No version of young Rey had foreseen this moment. No version of adult Rey had foreseen this moment. She hushed the feeling inside her Ben had named the howl, the feeling telling her she didn’t deserve this, that this was fleeting, that he didn’t love her the way she loved him, because she did love him. 

She slept in his arms.

They weren’t going anywhere..

XXX

Tap tap tap.

A woodpecker? In winter? 

Tap tap tap.

Rey cracked an eye, her phone flashing missed calls and messages.

LEIA: Rey, are you okay? I’m outside. I didn’t get the day wrong, did I?

“Shit!” Rey squealed, rolling Ben off her. He woke upon landing, he face screwing up with discomfort as he tried to claw her back into his warm embrace.

Not waiting for her lover, Rey threw on his abandoned boxers and his big red plaid flannel shirt. She scooped her toque and mitts by the door, stomping into Ben’s boots by mistake and running with it.

She burst out the front door, the cold air pouring into the living room. Ben snapped into fetal like a potato bug, grumbling sleepily.

“Leia!” Rey called into the holy silence of Christmas morning on the suburban street. The woman on her porch turned, raising eyebrows at her dishevelled friend.

“I didn’t realize you were having slumber parties with the boy next door,” she teased, choosing not to comment specifically on Rey’s state of appearance.

“It’s a recent development,” she laughed, her steps in the snow comical in the enormous boots. “A good development.”

“Will I be getting details?”

“A lady never reveals where a man has kissed her.”

“Well, I hope you’re putting him through his paces. You know, when Han was younger he could reach both-“

“Rey, you left your keys,” Ben said from the door, just in his pjs pants, “you’ll need them to get in oh-.”

“Ben?” Leia said softly, pale and tense. “Ben?” She left the sidewalk, drifting to the porch where he stood barefoot on the snow crusted doormat.

“Leia?” Rey said curiously, following her back.

“Mom,” Ben said tentatively.

Pointing at Rey, Leia’s attention turned back to her as well.

“You’re with Ben? You’ve been with Ben?” Leia frowned. “Those are Ben’s underpants?” She shook her head, her thoughts rearranging almost visibly. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“How was I to know?” Rey asked, torn between shock and unearned guilt.

“You think there are that many Solos around?”

“Your name is Organa!”

“Han’s name is Solo! You didn’t- it’s never? Ever?” Leia sat on the top porch step, rubbing at her cheek. “I guess it hasn’t. You look as surprised as I feel.”

Unnoticed, Ben had come over. Rey felt her coat drop around her shoulders, a light squeeze on one before he sat down next to his mother.

“Are you okay?”

“Ben, do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you? Missed of your life, your pain, your joy? I should call Han, he’ll want to come over,” Leia said, her eyes running over every inch of her son’s face. He wrapped his arm around her, and the tiny woman tucked herself into his giant chest.

“You’re shivering.”

“Come in and warm up when you’re ready,” Rey said quietly, stepping past them. She couldn’t stay out in the bright cold any longer, her bare legs sprayed with snow in the breeze.

Leia gently touched Ben’s neck.

“You part piraña, kid?” she asked Rey dryly. Flushing, Rey hid inside. Before the kettle was done she was dressed, and ready to greet her wet-bottomed guests.

“I’m going to go change,” Ben said softly, watching Leia talking rapidly on her phone in the kitchen. “Maybe have a fast shower, I think I have stuff in my hair from when I... you know.” He grinned, watching Rey turn fire engine red.

“What every mother longs to hear,” Leia chimed in from the other room, going back to her conversation. Snorting, unembarrassed, Ben went home. Leia strode in, her phone conversation complete.

“I am actually pleased he’s a generous lo-“

“Han coming over?” Rey interrupted hastily.

“Yes, I hope that’s okay, this awkward invasion.”

“Yeah, no, that’s fine, it’s fine.” Rey made a pot of coffee, and then a pot of tea, and for good measure, a frozen can of lemonade. “Probably better here in more neutral territory than his home.”

“So, are you and Ben a couple?”

Rey stirred the pale yellow lump around the plastic pitcher, jabbing at it a few times to break it up.

“I think so? This is all very new. Like last night new.” That didn’t feel entirely accurate. “It’s been coming on slowly.”

“He likes you, that’s clear. And you like him. That’ll take you pretty far.” Leia smiled deviously, a look that put a twinkle in her eye and made her look twenty. “Never thought if I found my wayward son again it would be through a bonus daughter.”

“I think Ben and I would need to have a lot of conversations to make sure that we’re on the same page for the essentials before we considered a serious relationship,” Rey outright lied. 

Those conversations had taken place as a series of hypotheticals over weeks in her work shop, on the porch, the occasional shared walk to the grocery store or library. They were very much on the same page on the essentials.

“Snow clouds in the southwest are blowing in,” Ben said, knocking snow off his runners and setting them beside his stolen winter boots on the front mat. “Going to storm later.”

He went to the kitchen and made up a bowl of cereal to go with his coffee, spilling slightly as he took them to Rey’s living room. Leia clearly noticed his casual pilfering of Rey’s food but said nothing.

“How was your flight?”

“Ben, why didn’t you contact us? We knew when you took the undercover assignment it could be a year or two without hearing from you but after? Everything you went through? Alone?”

There was a knock at the door before Ben could think of an answer, and Rey greeted Han. He couldn’t seem to make eye contact with her.

“Snow clouds in the southwest are blowing in,” Han said, knocking snow off his boots and setting them beside his son’s stolen winter boots on the front mat. “Going to storm later.”

“So what’s back on the table, Ben, before an old man gets his hopes up,” asked Han, leaning forward over the coffee table with an early morning lemonade. 

Rey had gone to fold laundry and give the family some space.

“Old man,” Ben snorted, “As if you act a day over sixteen at the best of times. You flew all night and then made it here from your bed in what, twelve minutes?”

“Don’t change the subject. You’ve had your life carefully laid out since you were ten and it didn’t include any of this,” Han waved a hand at everything. “So what's back on the table.”

“Will you stay in town?” Leia asked cautiously. 

“We’ll be staying in this house,” Ben retorted. He narrowed his eyes and qualified the statement. “I mean my house. I’ll stay in my house. With Rey if she wants. Unless Rey wants me to move into hers, then I’ll be here.”

“Marriage?” Han offered next. “You’ve always been against it.”

“If she wants it I’ll do it. She likes small weddings, city hall and brunch, that sort of thing. Yes, you’d be invited. If it were to happen.”

Leia and Han exchanges significant looks, each prompting the other in silent argument to ask the question they both wanted to know the most.

Ben helped them out, something he wouldn’t have been inclined to do years earlier.

“Yes, if Rey is interested in raising kids I will give you someone to spoil. But it’s not in the immediate plan so calm your shorts. Rey and I only met in September, we’re nowhere near taking responsibility for young life.”

“I didn’t actually hear the word baby. You’re not just talking about getting a puppy or something, right?”

“There are too many Leias and Reys out there for either of us to make a new baby first choice,” Ben said gently. “We both like the idea of adopting. In future. In theory. There’d be a lot of bridges to cross. We’re all getting ahead of ourselves.”

“So you’re at least saying we’ll see you? Regularly?” Leia was all hope. 

“You still want to see me,” Ben said softly, “after what I’ve done? After what I’ve become?”

Leia took her son’s head in both hands and guided it down to her shoulder. She held it there while his voice grew teary.

“Mom, everything about me that you liked, that you were proud of, that person is gone,” he mumbled into her sweater.

“No one’s ever really gone,” she whispered. “I want to get to know my son again, exactly as you are now.”

XXX

“New Years day, 3pm,” Han said, giving his son a last hug before they left. It was the fifth since they’d all starting standing in the entranceway, but no one was really counting. Leia was holding Ben’s hand like it would vanish if she let go, the box with the carefully wrapped phoenix clutched to her chest.

“And you’re sure you won’t stay for lunch?” Ben asked again. Rey’s heart was full watching Ben and his parents interact, like watching parts of him she already loved finally fitting into their proper places. They made something beautiful together, these broken people, and she was so grateful to have played any part in bringing them together.

“We’ve been awake a long time, and I imagine you kids would like some privacy,” Leia said with a tired smile.

They left with an exchange of phone numbers and a couple teary eyes, the car pulling out of Rey’s driveway as snow began to fall thickly from dull purple-grey clouds.

“Come with me,” Rey told her numb-looking partner, taking his hand and leading him up the stairs. “We are going to curl up in my bed like a basket of kittens and talk this whole thing out.”

“I don’t even know.”

He followed her to her room, allowed himself to be tucked in, clothes and all, and felt Rey snuggle chastely into his arms. She could see the glow of her Christmas lights through the snow around the window.

“Tell me everything on your mind right now. Every single little thing.”

When Ben finished talking they slept, and when they finished sleeping they made love, and when they finished making love they made a box of mac and cheese. They ate it out of the pot on Rey’s front porch swing, forks held with mittens, sugar in the ketchup crystallizing in the cold. The snow fell like thick white curtains between them and the rest of the world.

“Your bed is really comfortable.”

“Mm-hm,” Rey agreed.

“Your porch light is brighter.”

“Sure is.”

“And I’ve heard traffic around the hedge can be murder at rush hour.”

Rey grinned into her scarf.

XXX

It took two weeks and one trip for Ben to move all his worldly possessions to Rey’s house. She carried the plant from Finn and set it on her coffee table between a stack of his library books and her sketch pad.

There, now they were a family.

It was so much more than enough.


End file.
